Rochester’s Annual Fall Battle With the Crows Is Back On
It's a right of fall here in Minnesota's Med City: The leaves change color, the temperature drops, and tons of crows head back downtown.
They're back, alright. The crows, that is. Back downtown, trying to find suitable areas to ride out the winter season-- now that Old Man Winter is also back in town. And, of course, along with the crows, we also get the... crow poop. Which can be quite the problem given the massive number of crows that inhabit downtown.
All the crows-- and their poo-- doesn't affect me too much, given that I can park about 20 steps from the Quick Country studios. But if you have to walk downtown at all-- like many of us do every day-- it's not fun.
Which is why the city of Rochester has been actively running their Crow Abatement Program for several years now. And, it's up and running again right now. According to the city's website, a crew of several people will be out, mainly overnights during the week, to essentially pester the crows enough to get them to leave our fair city.
"As in other years, the focus of the abatement work will be in the Downtown core. Some activities will occur on the fringe areas of Downtown to dissuade crows from entering Downtown. Various techniques will be used such as distress calls, lights, lasers, airsoft pellets, and starter pistols," the city's website noted.
So, yeah, if you hear gunshots overnight downtown, it's probably the Rochester Crow Busters, trying to get those birds to head elsewhere. And there are a LOT of them. Check out this video former KTTC Meteorologist Matt Benz posted on his Twitter page from last year. THAT is a lot of crows!
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