Thread: Crow plague countermeasures?

Crows are a 'protected species' here, which means that they are breeding at a prodigious rate. The cawing is so bad that you sometimes can't hear someone 6ft away, even indoors (they're at it as I type)

I live in inner Brisbane, so a sly bit of summary with a 12-gauge is hardly an option, poison is out because of danger to other animals (like the neighbours)- any ideas?

I find that the best way to keep crows under control is to give them a ludicrous amount of block jobs.

Decent air rifle and silencer - don't shoot to kill, just wound so they fly off and die elsewhere. Oterwise there will be a pile of dead crows within 30m of where you live and it will be easy to find who did it.

Get them to move along quietly.

http://www.birdgard.com.au/

Originally Posted by Taffnp

Decent air rifle and silencer - don't shoot to kill, just wound so they fly off and die elsewhere. Oterwise there will be a pile of dead crows within 30m of where you live and it will be easy to find who did it.

Yeah, I've considered that. Feinwerkbau, anyone?

Originally Posted by Bollock-chops

Get them to move along quietly.

http://www.birdgard.com.au/

Thanks, B-c, that sounds promising! I'd prefer something a little more stylish, like falconry or flamethrowers, but that might have to do.

Had a bird scarer a few years ago and it worked well for a few months. If I remember correctly it changed sounds every so often but the birds got used to it eventually. We also had a stuffed fox, plastic owls and hawks. I think one of the owls had wings that flapped as a screeching sound came out. They all had limited impact. By far the most satisfying control was shooting the branchers. Branchers were the young crows that had grown thier first feathers and had skipped from the nest onto the branches high up in the pine trees they nested in. They came out all at the same time, with in a week or so at the middle/end of may.
I used the .22lr, .410, 12bore and air-rife, hundreds of the branchers would be on the deck and the objective lens of my scopes and my face would be covered in thier blood as most shots were almost vertical.
I had some BB shot for blasting the arse out of the nests too! Great fun but at the end of it all the parents would come home to roost and numbers didn't seem to drop much!

Just thinking back, we also had a larssen trap. It was a cage with a funneled opening on the roof. This had sticks though the mesh funnel that the crow would hop down into the cage, The bottom of the funnel was too narrow for the crow to escape out from with its wings outstreched. In the cage we had a tub of water and a rabbit with its guts hanging out as bait and food for the detainees. The trap worked best if you had one live crow inside especially a female one at breeding time.
Our trap was room sized but they could be much smaller. Once you've caught them take them away to kill them because if the other crows saw you killing their mates they stay well away from the trap. The old keeper down the glen used to drown them.

The UK laws have really clamped down on this now, I haven't seen a Larsen trap for a few years.

S-mise, the guy lives in Oz and the birds are a protected native species.

Originally Posted by auscam

Originally Posted by Taffnp

Decent air rifle and silencer - don't shoot to kill, just wound so they fly off and die elsewhere. Oterwise there will be a pile of dead crows within 30m of where you live and it will be easy to find who did it.

Yeah, I've considered that. Feinwerkbau, anyone?

Weihrauch HW100 Carbine thumbhole - loudest noise is the hammer!
Again, the evidence left nearby will be self incriminating........

Any where near Enogara Barracks? Had root canal work there by a gorgeous lady Captain - fun was RN uniforn in an Aussie barracks, did I get sh it............yep

Editt four crapp speling

Ask the crows "Who wants ice-cream?" Give any creature who lands a bar of margarine and force him to eat it,problem solved!

Originally Posted by S-mise

I used the .22lr, .410, 12bore and air-rife, hundreds of the branchers would be on the deck and the objective lens of my scopes and my face would be covered in thier blood as most shots were almost vertical.

Now that really, REALLY sounds like my kind of thing! However, I'd be prosecuted in seconds, only faster.

Originally Posted by alhucoll

Originally Posted by auscam

Originally Posted by Taffnp

Decent air rifle and silencer - don't shoot to kill, just wound so they fly off and die elsewhere. Oterwise there will be a pile of dead crows within 30m of where you live and it will be easy to find who did it.

Yeah, I've considered that. Feinwerkbau, anyone?

Weihrauch HW100 Carbine thumbhole - loudest noise is the hammer!
Again, the evidence left nearby will be self incriminating........

Any where near Enogara Barracks? Had root canal work there by a gorgeous lady Captain - fun was RN uniforn in an Aussie barracks, did I get sh it............yep

Editt four crapp speling

Yes, I'm in the next suburb over. You must have had fun! :D 'root canal' (snigger)

95 that was, I and I have every detail of her face and body imprinted in my skull! She WAS essence!

The abuse - can't remember it because as a lonely sailor boy I was absoluteley smitten by her form........................

August '95 - find out who she was, this is your mission statement!

I'd come down just to lick the sweat of her thighs............the pain she took away, the smile she gave, the touch of her hand on flesh, the smell of her perfume, the smell off antiseptic, nope delete the last.

Okay, she was edible then, and I'm sure she's edible now!

Edit:
And the titanium post with the false one is still good!

Sounds like she'd give me a titanium post too! (note to self; stop these Benny Hill-type double entendres, they were crap in the '70's)

Have asked for quote on electro-bird-scaring thingo, will wait and see.