Creepy Crows

Have you been getting freaked out by the incredible flocks, I mean, murders of crows that seem to be congregating around sunset? I have seen it in Rochester and Syracuse, and I didn't know why it had been happening, so my first instinct was panic... Well maybe not quite that extreme, but I know lots of people who have been wondering about the abundance of crows, so I decided to do a little research. Luckily, there are some pretty basic scientific explanations for why this population explosion has taken hold.

Cities are not typically the cleanest of places, and it's never hard to spot loose trash rolling around a city street. As scavengers, crows are drawn to cities, where their luck of finding food is much higher than in a remote rural area. It's no surprise that crows are more common in highly populated areas. More people means more trash and food scraps for crows to scavenge.

I know that crows rely heavily on corn as a main source of food, but I would be interested to know if increased crow populations in Syracuse correlate with a higher level of trash production that is not proportional to the population growth of the city. That is to say, I wonder if the same number of people are generating more trash (i.e. being more wasteful) and if that is helping to fuel the growing crow populations. The city of Syracuse experienced zero population growth between 2010 and 2011 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This is too short of a time span to do any serious statistical analysis, and I also don't happen to know the population growth of the Syracuse crow population between 2010 and 2011. I read one source claiming that crow populations in Palo Alto, California have increased by 13% a year since 1975. I cannot attest to the validity of this claim, but by golly, that growth rate is astounding!

Perhaps we are only witnessing a change in distribution of crow populations. If numbers haven't increased, maybe more crows are congregating in cities rather than other areas. As farmers work to scare off crows, these birds are forced to relocate to new territory.

It may be a bit reassuring to know that crows are very social, caring birds. They mate for life after all. It seems like every year I see more and more of them flying about, amassing in the tops of the tallest trees. Whether there are more crows overall or just more crows in cities, I just hope they know how to take care of each other once they start spreading around their germy bird diseases.