A spate of attacks on people has prompted advice from an expert who said it was especially likely to happen now during nesting season
Crows have carried out a number of attacks lately – and an expert warned this time of year is especially dangerous(Image: Getty)
Anyone with crows in their garden has been given a chilling warning by a wildlife expert after a spate of incidents. The BBC reported that a number of people have been attacked by the birds recently – with some causing injuries.
Now a crow expert has said that because of new farming practices they’re being driven away and into gardens causing them to be aggressive. Recent attacks have been highlighted in Nottinghamshireas well as Essex, Teesside, Dorset and Derbyshire.
Rob Lambert, an environment academic at the University of Nottingham said he considers recent incidents in Arnold and Stapleford to be “conflicts” rather than “attacks” and said they were a result of crows moving to urban areas to escape persecution in rural areas.
Dr Lambert told the BBC : “We have for hundreds of years persecuted crows in agricultural areas. They are seen to impact on crops, they are seen to impact on livestock,”
“They have moved into urban areas and their behaviours have changed over decades, and they have become more confident and more ebullient, more confrontational than their rural cousins, who still live under this fear of persecution and fear of this idea of being seen as pests and vermin.”
Dr Lambert said crows were regarded as pests in agricultural areas, and were shot or scared away He said there were a number of species of crows in the UK, but those typically seen in urban areas were carrion crows and jackdaws.
Dr Lambert believes the variety known as carrion crows are behind the attacks: “The majority of these cases are simply crows defending territory, defending the food source, defending a nest site, defending fledged young, and they are instinctively reacting to any invasion into that space, and I would say that’s particularly more relevant with people with dogs.
“They are not coordinated dive-bombing attacks, they are simply a scare tactic that these birds are using to chivvy us away from an area that they perceive to be their territory.”
And Dr Lambert has bad news for anyone with ornithophobia – a fear of birds – conflicts like these are likely to become more common in future. “As we pave over the countryside, and as we change farming, and as climate shifts, birds are moving,” he said.
“I think there will be instances of conflict between people and crows for decades to come. It’s how we manage those conflicts, and it’s how we avoid blaming the birds, and look at some of our behaviours, and look at some of our impacts on the wider countryside that are shifting and changing the maps of species across the country.”
In advice for how people should avoid being targeted in their gardens, he especially explained that now, during nesting season, the danger was higher. He said: “I think my advice would be to be very aware that there are nesting crows, then there will be young birds on the wing.
“Feel free to carry a stick slightly higher above your head because they will strike for that, and be aware often if you’re walking with dogs it might be the dog the crows are targeting, not yourself.”
RSPB advice:
An RSPB spokesperson warned members of the public to “keep a distance from any nests during breeding season”.
“Crows only tend to attack humans when they get near to their nests during the breeding season,” they said.
“[They] usually keep to themselves and will only attack when they feel threatened themselves, or a threat towards their chicks.”