Iowa City Hopes Combo of Cold and Owl Balloons Causes Crows to Head South

In December, Iowa City had a serious crow problem. In January, it has continued.

What may solve this problem from continuing into February you ask?

The answer: Snow, a hawk, owl balloons and a reference librarian.

With an unseasonably warm winter to this point, downtown Iowa City served as an unusually perfect roosting location for the crows to settle in. And so the crows congregated there in dark bunches, cawing, staring, pooping and generally creeping people out.

In late December, the city decide to do something about it.

Mike Moran, head of the Iowa City Parks of Recreation Department, and Rick Fosse, director of the Department of Public Works, were tasked with coming up with that something.

Moran said that Iowa City has its crow visitors every year, but due to the warm weather conditions, this year the crow population was different, as in much more numerous.

"This year because of the lack of the snow on the ground we got them in a greater magnitude," Moran said.

Still, Moran said the city was interested in using nonlethal deterrants, unlike the methods used in nearby Cedar Rapids.

Cedar Rapids, on and off for more than a decade, has employed “crow coffins” – boards on which two dead crows are attached – as a method of scaring away the thousands of crows that converge on the downtown’s Greene Square Park at dusk.

Moran knew that this solution, or others like it involving crow killing, would not fly in animal friendly Iowa City. He also didn't want to use another method: playing the song of a crow in distress. The song of a suffering crow might detract from the downtown's general ambiance, he said.

"We thought that sound might be a little annoying in ped mall," Moran said.

So Moran enlisted the help of Maeve Clark, a crow fan and coordinator of the reference department at the Iowa City Public Library, to solve the problem nonlethally by building a greater understanding of the birds. Moran jokingly referred to Clark as the city's crow whisperer. Clark said she would wear this label with pride if only she thought it were true.

"There are so many people in town who know so much more about birds than me," Clark said. "I just happen to be an information finding expert who happens to like crows a lot.

"You have to think like a crow to get rid of them, or at least try to convince them to move along so they aren't such a nuisance."

Clark said she enjoys watching crows because they are large, intelligent, social, and to her eye, beautiful. She said crows, which mate for life, operate much more as a family than people realize. The large congregations of crows are actually large, chattering social groups.

"They're just interesting to watch, because they communicate with each other," Clark said. "They just do interesting things together."

Clark and Moran worked together to abate the crow problem, with Moran making calls and Clark digging up information. Finally they settled on an interesting factoid that you might not know-- crows hate other predatory birds, especially owls, which can divebomb their roosts at night.

"Owls are their enemies, they don't like owls," Moran said.

With this in mind, Moran purchased a dozen predator balloons from a company called Nixaline in Moline, IL. These balloons, plus shiny milar ribbons placed high in the trees, are supposed to scare the birds by simulating the eyes of predator birds, such as owls.

Moran said it appears that since late December, when balloons went up, the crows have seemed to decrease. Clark said a hawk may also have begun hunting in the area, causing the crows to seek a new safer location.

Ultimately, the return of snow last week (and today) may be the biggest deterrant, though. If all this fails to reduce their numbers, the crow squad will have to return to the drawing board with new ideas. Moran suggested that they could perhaps place scarecrows on the top of buildings.

But where do the crows go when the cold returns?

"They go south," Moran said. "Just like everyone else."