JEDDAH: It’s not quite like Alfred Hitchcock’s film, “The Birds,” but city officials here have declared crows an encroaching nuisance to humans. As such, the municipality is once again embarking on an effort to control the population of loud and aggressive crows they say could pose a threat to human health and other bird species.
Under a new three-year, SR4.5-million program, the municipality will dispatch teams who will set up traps, root out nests and hunt down the birds.
Khaled Aqeel, deputy mayor for services, called this program a “top priority” in a city wracked with water shortages and traffic problems. The city has no other animal-control initiatives, especially for addressing the problem of the large population of feral cats. The new project was announced on Monday at the conclusion of a crow control seminar that was held at the municipality’s headquarters. Animal-control and environment experts from both the municipality and the private sector attended the seminar.
Hani Kamal, head of the crow-control program, said that the campaign, which will be carried out by seven groups, would target crows in various locations, including trees, electricity polls, rooftops, landfills, parks, slaughterhouses, and fish and cattle markets.
He said that the municipality has conducted a field study on the concentration areas of crows, and has divided the areas in addition to potential areas where crows might breed in large numbers. Each municipality branch will be responsible for its area in terms of monitoring and controlling the increase and decrease of crows.
Aside from being loud, crows pose a considerable threat to other bird species because of their tendency to eat eggs out of the nests.
Last year, the city announced a similar crow-control initiative, which included cutting down trees where the bellicose birds were known to nest.
