Plague of 60,000 CROWS descends on Ohio city

Daily Mail | December 11, 2014

A city in Ohio is battling a plague of crows with swarms estimated to be 60,000-strong - meaning there's almost one bird to every human inhabitant.

Residents, business owners and police in Springfield have joined together in a bid to get rid of the 'dirty' birds, which leave droppings everywhere and create noise pollution.

Volunteer armies have been brandishing lasers at the buildings from dusk until early night, while a biologist also recommended using sound machines.

However, the digital repellents which send out sounds to scare off the birds, have largely been unsuccessful.

Some have compared the crow-laden landscape to the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds, where the California town of Bodega Bay suddenly becomes the subject of unexplained and violent bird attacks.

However, the murder of crows troubling Springfield isn't aggressive like the one in the 1963 thriller.

But with tens of thousands of them at times, their overwhelming presence on trees and buildings is causing concern about damage and potential health hazards from the birds' waste.

Sherrock noted that the stones swallowed by crows to help digest their food have clogged up gutters on buildings and business owners have been paying thousands to get droppings removed.

Springfielders are now in the midst of a two-week drive to banish the crows for good.

The city's service department is employing up to two workers per night during this time to fire flare guns.

They hope this will convince the birds to choose a roosting place away from the downtown area.

Apparently the crow epidemic has been an ongoing problem for more than a decade in the area.

But Sherrock concluded: 'We’ll keep going as long as it takes.'

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2869888/Countless-crows-droppings-rankle-Ohio-residents.html#ixzz3LkUXxTh8