City Ponders Messy Crow Problem

Tulare - Tulare's crow problem will soon be over, but only until next fall when the noisy and messy birds are expected to return, much to the dismay of downtown merchants and local residents.

“We receive a lot of complaints,” said Milt Stowe, director of parks and recreation, the city department people turn to with their bird problems.

The department now uses two different recordings in the downtown – one of a crow being attacked by a horn owl – to try to trick the birds into fleeing to another area, but the technique has only been mildly successful.

“It's effective for awhile, but they get use to it and they come back,” Stowe said. “Crows are very intelligent birds and they'll figure stuff out very quickly.

John Horton, services manager for Fresno-based Wildlife Control, agreed the birds catch on to the ruses very quickly and said the key to success is to tackle the problem with a large bag of tricks.

“You've got to change it up,” Horton said.

Stowe has talked to Wildlife Control, which has worked in other communities, about possibly coming to Tulare next fall when the birds return.

An all out effort to control and relocate the birds would cost an estimated $9,000, Stowe said, adding no decision has been made.

“My thought is to present it to the City Council,” Stowe said. “If they want to add it to the budget, they can. In the meantime, we'll continue to do what we are doing.”

Bag of Tricks

Wildlife Control's bag of tricks include such things as shining laser light beams, shooting off poppers, sounding air horns and employing clappers, Stowe said.

“They start in the evenings and they continue until the morning,” he said. “That way the birds are never allowed to come in to roost and rest.”

Shooting the crows is not an option, as it is with pigeons, because they are a hunted species and there are regulations pertaining to that, Horton said.

The number one recommendation he gives to people who want to reduce the crow population is to trim back trees, which he said sometimes forces a choice between having the trees the way you want them or the crows.

To completely rid a city of crows is not possible, Horton said.

“What you do is create another area where it's not quite so intrusive,” he said. “You try to get them to roost along the 99 corridor … it's not an overnight success.”

Stowe said the experts have told him that crows are creatures of habit and will return to an area each year until you do something about it.

How many crows there are seems to depend on what the weather was like during the nesting season. A severe winter could mean only three out of 10 eggs survive, while in a mild winter as many as eight out of 10 eggs could hatch, he said.

The crow topic is a frequent one at Tulare Improvement Program and other downtown-related meetings.

“Next year we've got to get on this thing earlier and haze them,” downtown businessman Don LeBaron said.

LeBaron, who took the photos for this story, suggested getting a group of volunteers together to take on the crows, instead of hiring a firm.

“I think we can do it and save the city some money,” he said.

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