the Grand Dennis sed :

> To my knowledge neither of the North American ravens is endangered or
> threatened. Like most corvids, they adapt well to humans and therefore are
> more likely to increase in some areas. ...

That's clearly not the case in France (in Europa ?), where we also have very
few_Corvus corax_.
The only parts of France where one can see a Raven are
- the mountainous areas, where it is still quite common
- some cliffs of Brittany, where only a few couples (I would say less than 50
pairs for more than 500 km of coastal cliffs)
They have suffered a lot from destruction, mainly by hunters and gamekeepers.
Its all-black appearance made it considered a "evil bird" I guess (for me, evil
birds should be yellow/orange/red :-} ), and probably its omnivorous habits
were also discovered by keen observing hunters.
The common point between these two french areas still"housing" Ravens is that
they are fairly inaccessible to people (this is changing very fast in the
mountains, though, with the more and more popular rock-climbing hobby).


> ... I think the Common Raven has
> decreased in the Appalachians, and I remember reading somewhere that it was
> because there was a lot more livestock raised in parts of the mountains 100
> years ago, favoring ravens! Being effective predators and being subsidized
> in some areas by human activities, ravens are more likely to contribute to
> a threatened status for populations of *other* birds.

They may be subsidized in Europa too, but they seem to have too much fear of
humans there.
Probably, people act differently here than they do in Europa.
Have these birds never been slaughtered here ?

--
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A bird in the bush is better than two in the hand.

Serge Le Huitouze School of Computing Science
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca Simon Fraser University
tel: (604) 291-5423 Burnaby, British Columbia
fax: (604) 291-3045 V5A 1S6 Canada