I'm horrified that anyone on a bird list would consider killing crows
(such a beautiful, intelligent species) or any other bird--even game
birds.

Even if those species that are non-natives are intrusive and hard on the
natives, one should remember that few (if any) of them came here
voluntarily and none of them with malice aforethought. :) Most of them
were imported by men, either on purpose or because their caged birds
escaped.

Getting unwanted birds away from your feeders or property is relatively
easy because all you have to do is remove the food source. Take those
feeders into the garage for a week or so, and the unwanted birds will
disappear. I did this several times in the Midwest to stop large flocks
of English Starlings from coming to my feeders, and it worked like a
charm. And a day or two after the feeders were replaced in the yard,
woodpeckers, blue jays, cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches,and goldfinch
were back as if they had never been gone.

Another thing we did to keep the larger birds away from the finch feeders
was put a large platform feeder full of an array of seeds in the
backyard, and the finch feeders in the front yard. I suspect something
similar would work with crows, too. As my grandmother used to say, if
you plant corn, the crows will come.

Darlene Sybert
Cinebar WA
drsybert at northtown.org