After receiving complaints about the number of crows in downtown Trenton, the New Jersey Treasury Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services began crow dispersal efforts last Tuesday in what may become a yearly activity.
Crows gather in the thousands in downtown Trenton during the fall and winter months.
In what is becoming an annual activities, teams again are using pyrotechnics, lasers, spotlights, amplified recordings of crow distress calls, and crow effigies to frighten the birds. The goal is to disperse the large group of birds into smaller groups, and get them to move to different areas.
USDA Wildlife Biologist April Simnor explained that crows are habitual animals and they will return to their winter roost. “Every year this is going to happen basically,” she said. “The purpose of our management is to disperse this roost from the downtown Trenton area so that the roost is not so concentrated.”
The large flock of birds are noisy and leave droppings on benches, signs, trash cans and on cars. The droppings can increase the chances of exposure to diseases like histoplasmosis and salmonella. It can also be damaging to buildings and equipment and the cleanup can be costly to the city.
“In our first year we came out there in late winter and we had maybe 20,000 to 30,000 birds in Trenton. That took us a couple weeks to disperse that roost because they were in such great numbers,” she said.
Last year Wildlife Services started management activities early to get in front of the large flock, which has been beneficial. “During 2018-2019 we actually came out in the fall months as the roost was growing in size, so it wasn’t up to tens of thousands of birds.”
The public can assist in crow control by making sites less attractive to the birds. Simnor said keeping areas clean, free of trash and keeping lids on trash cans can help keep the birds away.
The program will be concluded on Nov. 30, but dispersal activities could continue into April 2020 if necessary.
India Duke can be reached at iduke@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Inja_NJ.
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