Crucified Crows

Crucified Crows
If only these birds would caw it quits.
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Thursday, January 11, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST

AUBURN, N.Y.--No one's saying who strung up two dead crows last month in the trees by the parking lot of Curley's Restaurant. And no one's saying who came along this week and cut the dead crows down. But when it comes to crows in general, just about everyone in this town outside Syracuse has something to say.

"I enjoy them. I enjoyed Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds.' They're kind of cool," says 36-year-old Sarah Cudahy, who works here in a shop that sells souvenir baseball caps and T-shirts imprinted with the slogan, "Auburn, NY, A City to Crow About."

"I think they ought to hang every one of them," says Dave Lupo, an auto worker having a beer at Curley's crowded bar. "Just get them out of here," adds Dave's drinking buddy, Leonard Kuhlmann, referring not to the avian dead duo but to crows still on the wing.

Getting rid of them is not easy--especially not in an era when wildlife control tactics collide with political correctness. Since 1995 this city of 30,000 people has become the winter home to a fast-growing flock of 50,000 to 75,000 crows. With the birds weighing in at about a pound apiece, that's upwards of 25 tons of crows cruising the local skies.

By day, the crows feed on what they can find in the frozen farm fields surrounding Auburn. At sunset, from October to March, they head into town, arriving in wave upon black cawing wave, to roost till dawn in the trees by the Owasco River, which flows near such local hotspots as Curley's Restaurant and Auburn's City Hall. Pedestrians run for cover. Motorists make a lot of trips to the car wash.

Auburn resident Steve DelFavero, about to brave the streets near Curley's, tries to come up with a tactful way of describing what happens when nature caws. "How can you say this? Their digestive systems are active, you know what I'm saying?"

The big message is that for all the marvels of modern science, there's a lot we just don't know how to handle--even when it hits us on the head. Auburn is one of a growing number of cities world-wide that have over the past 15 years or so found themselves increasingly beset by vast flocks of crows. From Seattle to Tokyo, from Davenport, Iowa, to Chatham, Ontario, residents have been battling these birds and their byproducts. So far the crows are winning.

Crow expert Kevin McGowan, curator of the birds-and-mammals collections at Cornell University, speculates that in winter the crows find comfort in the city heat and safety in the glow of city lights from predators like their archenemy, the great horned owl. He guesses further that crows, famous as the big brains of the bird world, have figured out that in cities they are relatively safe from humans, who tend to outlaw hunting in urban areas. But why the big flocks pick one city and not another, no one knows for sure. "Crows are a little unusual," says Mr. McGowan.

To chase away the birds, there is a roster of solutions. Yet while these may shuffle crows around a bit, they usually don't keep the birds away for long. The traditional straw scarecrow doesn't even make the starting lineup. The Japanese, back in the 1980s, came up with big scare-balloons, decorated to look like birds of prey. Lancaster County, Pa., favors propane-powered noise cannons. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, authorities have tried, among other things, grape-flavored repellent.

And then there's the so-called crucified-crow approach. According to Mayor Phillip Yerington of crow-besieged Davenport, Iowa, it works pretty well--if folks are willing to try it. Desperate three years ago over an infestation that had the trees near Davenport City Hall "black with crows," Mr. Yerington says he considered ideas ranging from "goo on the branches" to "having people walk the streets banging pots and pans." Finally, he got a call from someone in crow-fighting Cedar Rapids, who told him the one sure solution: "You just hang dead crows in the trees."

Davenport officials tested the tactic around City Hall, adding an aesthetic touch. "We wired them on boards so people wouldn't see dead crows hanging on trees like Christmas ornaments," says Mr. Yerington. It worked so well, he explains, that "we told people, you hang dead crows in the trees, no questions asked; just get 'em out by spring." And when Mr. Yerington heard recently about the problems here, he phoned Auburn's mayor, Melina Carnicelli, to spread the word. "Just neighbors helping neighbors" he says.

Crucified crows as official policy did not fly with the more politically correct Auburn authorities. Instead, Auburn's city hall is trying to defend its skies by decorating trees with big yellow balloons meant to look like fake owls. No one expects that to impress the crows for long.

But some anonymous person went ahead late last month with the dead-crow strategy--minus the aesthetically-mandated boards. That's how the two crow carcasses ended up frozen in the winter winds, tied with fishing line to the trees of Curley's parking lot. It was a small-scale act of defiance, and perhaps desperation, that the mayor says she let ride because it was done on private property. Curley's, a fourth-generation family restaurant owned by a second cousin of the mayor, has for the past five years been ground zero of the crow bombardment. The restaurant's owner, David Dello Stritto, last week said he had no idea how the dead crows got there. "But they work."

Not anymore. On Tuesday, activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals came to Auburn to look into crow well-being. Thus, somehow, the dead crows came down.

Mayor Carnicelli's hope is that Auburn can turn the infestation into a tourist attraction. She has been looking for ways to "go with it as a wonderful slice of nature," an approach that while ruling out the crucifixion of crows might yet include efforts to cook them. Stopping in for dinner at Curley's, Ms. Carnicelli suggests, "There needs to be a dish: 'Come to Curley's and eat crow.' "

Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays on OpinionJournal.com and in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America."