5 August 04

Crow Catching

My colleagues at the Wildlife Health Center are gearing up for a big corvid study. They plan to catch 60 crows and perhaps 30 yellow-billed magpies, equip them with radio-backpacks, and monitor them as West Nile Virus sweeps through this part of the country. It’s here now; there was a dead crow in Dixon, the next town down, which tested positive for West Nile over the weekend.

I was quietly finishing up my work day this afternoon (read: I was vaguely comatose following an unbelievably tedious series of web edits) when a huge bang woke me up. Picture two vets, one vet tech, and two hangers-on contemplating the effects of a net gun. They will fire this remotely over a baited meadow in an attempt to capture as many corvids as possible. You only get one shot, though: crows are smart and won’t allow themselves to be duped twice.

Perhaps not so smart as all THAT: one method of removing a huge colony of roosting crows in Davis was to play a tape of a crow being throttled. The colony left that spot and didn’t return for a couple of years.

Posted by at 07:31 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. Interesting. Nice web site for the Wildlife Health Centre.

    — Jenny    5. August 2004, 19:54    Link
  2. I once had an opportunity to fire a net gun. I think I buried the weights about six inches into the ground because I aimed too low. They sure look easy…and aren’t.

    — Catlin Walker    6. August 2004, 06:07    Link
  3. I remember your telling me about the tape with the crow being throttled…. I didn’t play anything of the sort for the bunch that was hanging around my house, but nevertheless, they seemed to have just upped and moved on, on their own—to another street, I suppose.

    I hope you do keep us posted about this project: I would like to learn more about crows in general.

    — maria    6. August 2004, 07:20    Link
  4. I’m going to second Maria on this one. I’m fascinated by corvids. I read Bernd Heinrich’s ‘Mind of the Raven’ this summer and was spellbound by the resourcefulness and intelligence of these birds. Crows, I imagine, would demonstrate similar qualities. I know this project sounds more as though it has to do with the heath of the birds than their behavior, but I’m curious nonetheless. And the idea of crows wearing little backpacks is funny . . .

    ;)

    — Siona    7. August 2004, 07:09    Link
  5. Interesting. Bet you don’t catch an white crow! Did you see my albino crow entry? Wonder what your colleagues would make of it?

    — Coup de Vent    8. August 2004, 10:35    Link
  6. Regards from a couple of crows in my garden in Tel-Aviv…

    — Corinna Hasofferett    12. August 2004, 20:21    Link
  7. Actually the above URL is the direct address…

    — Corinna Hasofferett    13. August 2004, 00:42    Link

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