Crow hunting season opens August 15 in New Hampshire.
The Department of Fish and Game hosted a seminar recently to revive interest in what it calls a forgotten pasttime.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Kerry Grens attended the seminar, met some crow hunters, and brought back this report.
Sixty years ago, crow hunting was considered backyard target practice.
When David Appleton was a teenager he’d shoot crows near his home in Brockton, Massachusetts.
Appleton: That was the thing you did in the off-season from hunting, the only thing you could shoot was crows, so I used to spend Saturday morning hunting crows.
Crows had been considered vermin, and it was open season all the time.
But New Hampshire implemented a hunting season a few decades ago.
It runs from August 15th to November 30th, and again for a week in March.
During those times hunters can shoot as many birds as they like.
Appleton, who now lives in Hebron, says it’s been decades since he hunted crows, but now he thinks he might want to get back into it.
Appleton: I’ve come to totally respect crows, because in a lot of cases they were smarter than I was. And for that reason I have a little problem whether I actually want to shoot crows again or not. I don’t know. I think there’s too many of them around. Driving my wife crazy they wake her up at five o’clock.
Over the past forty years, crow populations in North America have been on the rise.
And crow hunters—like Pat Shepard—say the animals are a nuisance to farmers, eating their crops.
Shepard: I hate crows. They eat my garden. So that’s just one of the appeals. I just think it’s fun. It’s an easy hunt. They’re just plentiful, I don’t have to drive five hours to go crow hunting.
The state is hoping to entice more people into hunting crow.
Shepard, Appleton, and about a dozen other interested hunters attended a crow hunting class the state put on in Holderness.
…taped crow sounds…
A loud speaker—playing a tape of crow calls—sits next to a fencepost, surrounded by about ten crow decoys, a fake owl, and a mechanized flying bat toy.
Hunter Pete Lester, who is running the demonstration, calls this tape Crows Fighting Owl.
And he says it’s a sure thing for attracting crows to a scene.
There’s also the Death Cry of the Crow…sounds…the Single Excited Crow…sounds…and Crows versus Hawk…sounds.
On some hunts Lester runs the tapes for hours.
He says that’s one of the nice things about crow hunting—noise does not disrupt the hunt.
Lester: It can be a very social style of hunting. For instance, my talking to your microphone isn’t going to upset if a crow is going to come to this decoy situation in front of us. My movement, my turning my head might, but my voice talking to you in a normal tone isn’t going to. When you’re deer hunting, you can’t talk.
The key to crow hunting, Lester says, is to remain unseen.
Crows are smart.
Lester says that’s one of the great draws: he considers them the most challenging bird hunt.
…Bang! Bang! shotgun sounds…
During a skeet shooting exercise, David Sporcic effortlessly takes down two clay pigeons.
He’s an experienced hunter and began shooting crows about forty years ago.
Since then, he says, the appeal among hunters has waned.
Sporcic: I guess there’s too many other types of hunting for birds that’s going on now. But I don’t mind it I think it’s great. I just think it’s a forgotten art. I just think people don’t have any desire to do it or maybe it hasn’t been passed down from generation to generation.
And unlike some of the other game birds, like pheasant or duck, eating crow is not typically a draw to hunt them.
Lester: I tried once as a kid, but I don’t know if it was cooked well. I didn’t cook it. And I didn’t care for it, but I’ve heard other people say it’s very good.
Pete Lester says, instead, some turn the dead crows into dog food, others compost them for fertilizer.
Even as the state tries to attract people to crow hunting, wildlife biologists are keeping a careful eye on a factor that has the potential to reduce crow populations far more than crow hunting—west nile virus.
Several years ago, in some states, the virus cut crow populations in half.
New Hampshire escaped the worst of the crow die-offs, but scientists say the virus is bound to return.
As far as hunter safety is concerned, there have been no reported cases of a human contracting west nile virus from handling infected birds.
But being out in a field during the summertime, hunters still have to put up with the mosquitoes.
Not to mention potentially hours of listening to recorded crow calls.
…Caw! Caw! Caw!...
For NHPR News, this is Kerry Grens.
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For the hunter haters: You are so sadly misinformed and guded by nothing but emotions. There is a balance that needs to be kept, and no one does it better than hunters. The fees we pay in licenses are the ONLY reason that there is any wildlife left in this country. Our fees and tax on equipment go to conserve land, protect th wildlife, research to ensure their future, prosecute those who kill animals illegally (POACHERS!), etc etc etc.
Look at Kenya for example - when hunting was outlawed there, the wildlife suffered immensely at the hands of poachers and lack of any funding to protect them. They re-instituted hunting and now, many years later, the wildlife populations are still no where near as healthy as they were before they banned all hunting.
Use your heads for once in your lives and become informed. You hate hunters because you are either plane moronic or just uninformed. You should, instead, thank God for us, for we are the true protectors of nature.
This story deeply saddened me. To think that killing another living being could be considered a "pasttime" or a filler for time where "there's nothing else to kill" is so incredibly primitive and inexcusable. What's next? Should we open season on seagulls, pigeons,......other "vermin"? Isn't that just a word we use to excuse ourselves for senseless killing? Shame on you.
This unexcusable absurdity they have he nerve to call "hunting" needs to cease. Perhaps people whom don't have a regard or respect for all life forms should be hunted down as vermin. Maybe Ebonezer Scrooge had the right idea, except instead of the poor;the author of "The Crow Hunt Is On." Perhaps we should give crows and other "vermin" a gun so they can have vindication on such red-necks! To all those remaining crows I say "Git 'R Done"