Currently, the number of Hooded crows (Corvus cornix) in Slovenia has increased and with this trend elevated number of situations are perceived as a conflict. The purpose of our research was to provide a firm basis for the selection of actions for management of population of Hooded crows that would be acceptable by public. With online survey on opinions, acceptability of several actions, emotions trigerred by crows, and negative experiences with crows, we received 1045 responses. We carried out descriptive statistics, principal component analysis and calculation of effect sizes to reveal patterns. Most respondents are interested to learn more about problems with crows and they think we should reduce their number, but not by any mean. About one third of population has will to activelly participate in actions toward controle of crows population, but about one third will activelly opose such actions. The most acceptable action for management is “Persecution of crows at nesting time with use of domesticated birds of prey (falcony)”, which is however unreliable to be performed on a regular basis. The least acceptable action is shooting of nestlings. From the results we can conclude that the most suitable actions should be passive, i.e. by education of people how to avoid conflicts with crows, and by better management of garbage as a source of food for crows in cities/towns.
COBISS.SI-ID: 22790152
In recent decades, the increase in number of crows, particularly the Hooded crow (Corvus cornix), in the (sub)urban environment has resulted in the ever-increasing conflicts with humans. Consequently, this has resulted in growing demands for significant reductions in abundance of these birds (particularly in the urban environment), which happened also in Slovenia. In a review paper, which had been prepared already in the phase of preparing the project proposal (by extension of the literature review), and was in press when sending proposal and afterwards published in a very early stage of the project realisation, we provided a comprehensive review of foreign studies on interactions among humans and crows, which aims to contribute to a better understanding of conflicts with (especially Hooded) crows in the urban and rural environment and therefore also to suitable management of the species. Due to (rather stigmatised) opinion on negative impacts of crows on populations of other bird species, an overview of studies on the effects of crows as predators was also provided. It is very evident from the literature that crows certainly play an important role in ecosystems, and are also involved in many conflict situations with human both on agricultural land (damages on crops and infrastructure) and in urban ecosystems (damage on property, attacks on humans, disturbing peace of residents, pollution in urban areas). In order to make suitable and reasonable management decisions, it would be necessary to systematically study comprehensive ecosystem values of (Hooded) crows and their conflicts with humans both in agricultural and urban areas of Slovenia. Based on these findings, appropriate measures to reduce both the number and volume of negative interactions as well as to increase the tolerance of crows in public should be implemented.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3918758