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Crows in Tokyo

One of the things I really hate about Tokyo are crows. Yes! Noisy and annoying crows that are all over Tokyo metropolitan area. They wake you up Saturday morning at five in the morning when they start cawing, they bother you while you walk to your work because they are always trying to catch food from the garbage and they are ugly-big-scary. I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t like them. Crow population in Tokyo was 7.000 in 1985 and now is around 40.000, the number of people complaining is increasing, and you can count the number of people being attacked by crows by thousands.

Tokyo’s governor Shintaro Ishihara, a pretty radical guy, is doing at least one good thing, he is trying to stop these annoying birds. Tokyo’s government created a “special commando” whose only purpose is “crow extermination”. This commando is starting to destroy nests and kill crows all around Tokyo. I didn’t really notice any difference yet but let’s be patient.

Tokyo Crow
The only “good” thing is that you can take crow pictures pretty easily even without zoom.

Another measure they adopted is to give 50.000 blue nets for free so Tokyo’s citizens cover their garbage bags when they put them outside their homes in the morning, it happens that in Tokyo they don’t use garbage dumpsters or any other type of “recipient” that could hide it from the crows. It’s pretty easy for the crows to eat in a city like Tokyo.

25 replies on “Crows in Tokyo”

This morning a big crow almost pooped on my head while I was taking out the trash.

It seems like there are less crows recently though, wasn’t there some initiative to kill a lot of them?

I saw a documentry on those crows, there amazingly smart, there also highly adaptable. If they’re, there, it’s for good.

[…] This is the song lyric: １　夕焼け 小焼けで 日（ひ）が暮（く）れて 山（やま）のお寺（てら）の 鐘（かね）がなる おててつないで みなかえろう 烏（からす）と いっしょに かえりましょう 　 ２　子供（こども）が かえった あとからは まるい大（おお）きな お月（つき）さま 小鳥（ことり）が夢（ゆめ）を 見（み）るころは 空（そら）には きらきら 金（きん）の星（ほし） The sunset is the end of the day, the bell from the mountain temple rings hand by hand let’s go back home together with the crows. […]

ANIMAL CRUELTY AND ANIMAL RIGHT is pretty much all i can say. Those birds are majestic, smart, and long-living (without the human “help”). I mean, I understand the frusturation of being attacked and woken up by them, which brings up my little story! i was walking down the street one morning, and this HUGE crow just flew at my head!!! At first I thought the crow just flew at me by mistake, but then it flew at me again, and again, and again untill I almost desided to crawl out of the “cursed” street… that was scary. I was mad, yes, but I got more extersise after a few days of being attacked over and over again…i just took a longer root to get to the main street to catch my bus. XD

you can’t just go on killing something that annoys you and you don’t like. imagine i don’t like you and just decide to put a bullet in the middle of your head….

Crows are scavengers and do more to clean up the environment better than you. If there are higher populations of crows its the fault of filthy, dirty humans that can’t be bothered to clean their property or cover their garbage cans.
I live on the coast of California and normally crows compete with the equally annoying Seagulls for food on the beaches but they infiltrate the suburbs when people are careless about garbage.
“Don’t feed the birds, folks.”

funny there can be a right wing soundtruck with a dozen loudspeakers blaring but complaints are about the birds.

if people put their trash in cans then there would be far fewer crows. we attract them then we smother their babies.

Oh c’mon you people, stop with that ecologist crap.
seems like most of you don’t or haven’t lived with crows on a daily basis, and they are F***ING ANNOYING.
and they are annimals that have multiplied thanks to the garbage in Tokyo, they weren’t MEANT to be there nor to be that many.
besides, Tokyo is one of the cleanest cities I’ve seen, no need for animals to do it (thats everyones main argument to defend crows, argument which I strongly disagree with)

I agree that the numbers changed drastically and that human garbage is certainly good food for the crows, but exterminating them is a bit harsh. Crows also clean up plenty of other things besides garbage, they take apart the carcass of small animals and fish and while I have to admit a didn’t see many animals while I was in Tokyo they have to have had some natural food in the area at some point.

Sure they were bigger then Canadian crows and they certainly were a lot of them but I didn’t really see them as a nuisance… I didn’t like the pigeons more then the crows, I saw pigeons swarming people not crows.

I think there should be a different solution besides extermination. There are plenty of animals and birds that aren’t meant to be in the numbers that they are in that particular area… here it’s seagulls, in Tokyo it’s crows and in New York it’s pigeons. Extermination is not the answer look at the issues caused by extermination of other species that were a nuisance to humans. It’s a nasty circle, kill one thing and another is out of control. Trust me I want to be rid of the seagulls that are putting more strain on ocean life then there already is but I don’t see much of a way of doing that. Killing adults in a decently quick death Ok… it’s like duck hunting minus I don’t think you can eat it. I’m just not fond of nest destruction. If the whole population growers old more or less at the same time it’s not going to be good in the long run.

Here in Canada the Crows leave early Fall, yes they are noisy but really smart I not agree on killing an animal just because they annoying. Could be other rational measures to keep them away.

Crows were very strange in Japan if you have never been there before. They create this weird experience. Almost creepy. Agreed crows are smart. In Australia, I once saw a crow flying with a Big-M (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_M) in its beak. Totally halarious! Probably never to be captured again…

thats funny… i was surprised by the amount of crows when i first went to tokyo …but, i like them – brings a gothic atmosphere to the city. in fact i found tokyo to have a more of a gothic feel than i thought it would.

No sympathy for the crows from this particular corner of sleep-deprived salarymanland. They’ve been at it from the break of dawn these past two weeks. Lately it’s been warm at night so I’ve been sleeping with the windows open and there is no escape from the noise that starts at 4:30am. Called the local council previously but was told that they can’t do anything unless I can pinpoint the nest. Oh yeah, really effective policy, Mr. Ishihara. Sheesh. Anyway will get one of those plastic pellet guns. Don’t worry, crow-lovers: the pellets don’t kill them. (Not that I could particularly care less if they did, but presumably some poor soul would have to deal with the carcass.)

The crows are only there because they found good resources, like rats or pigeons. Get some hawks and the crows will move on. Hawks will patrol the area better and they are not noisy like crows.

Crows might be a nuisance but they’re very intelligent. Actually researchers discovered that they’re problem solving capacities exceeds that of chimpanzees. They’re also highly sociable: they mate for life, live in families and take care of their elderly when they can no longer hunt. But God forbid they wake you up every now and then with their cawing! EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES!!!!!

crows rule and no matter how annoying they are, they have a right to live too! we are destroying the earth so we have no right to say that they are doing anything wrong. they just want to live, like all of us. they are amazing creatures. live and let live is the way we all win! the meek shall inherit the earth.

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