"If you see blood, it's over": Crow attacks are increasing - livestock brutally mutilated

Created: 06/02/2022, 21:25

By: Tobias Gehre

A chick owned by Josef Unglert was badly mauled by crows.

That's why fear is always there when he checks his poultry flocks or his flocks of sheep.

(mercury collage) © Gehre

Dead and mutilated livestock, plundered fields: the crow invasion is increasingly becoming a problem for agriculture.

Puchheim – The damage is in the tens of thousands.

Now there are increasing calls for an end to the protection status and for more consistent hunting – and for more understanding among the population.

When farmer Josef Unglert from Puchheim visits his pasture sheep, fear has always accompanied him.

Because his animals are attacked.

It's not bears or wolves that are after the sheep.

The danger comes from above - and it particularly threatens the youngest members of the herd.

Recently lambs have been attacked by carrion crows.

Crow attacks against farm animals are increasing: Lambs are having their eyes pecked out

Newborns in particular are vulnerable to bird attacks, says Unglert.

In some animals, the soft abdomen around the umbilical cord was hacked open.

Other lambs lack eyes.

Experienced sheep mothers would scare away the crows.

Animals that have had offspring for the first time, however, are often intimidated by the birds.

The adult sheep themselves can also become victims, says the farmer.

Farm animals attacked by crows: beaks make deep wounds

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“Once we had an animal with a two-inch hole in its back.” The animals often perish miserably.

Unglert has to redeem others.

Young geese are also at risk.

At first, the crows would only join them in the enclosure to eat.

But some of them went after the geese.

"Once they see blood, it's over," says Unglert.

The farmer picked up a victim of the recent attack.

In the body of the cub, on the neck and head, gaping wounds - caused by the pointed beaks of the crows.

But not only the animals of the farmers are the focus of the black birds.

They also have their sights set on crops.

Farmer's chairman Georg Huber lost the seed of a two-hectare corn field in the past few weeks.

"A total loss," says the organic farmer.

Not only attacks on lambs and geese: crows destroy farmers' crops

If the reseeding should also be picked out - which Huber assumes - he would have to complain about damage estimated at 6000 euros.

A company in Maisach even lost 25,000 euros last year due to crows.

Two types of crows are responsible for the damage, the organic farmers explain.

Josef Unglert deals with carrion crows.

The birds that make life difficult for Georg Huber are rooks.

These have already caused resentment in recent years.

Because the animals like to set up their colonies in inhabited areas, annoyed residents are increasingly suffering from the droppings and noise of the birds.

Countless attempts to expel the protected animals were sometimes more, sometimes less successful.

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In Puchheim, one of the district's hotspots in the crow problem, the deterrence worked to some extent.

Georg Huber is convinced of that.

The birds would have retreated to more rural areas and would help themselves to the farmers' fields there.

Both farmers have also noticed a drastic increase in the number of birds.

"In the evening there are so many people sitting on the high-voltage line that the cables are sagging," says Josef Unglert.

After attacks on farm animals: Farmers call for crows to be hunted more intensively

The two farmers demand that crows be hunted more intensively.

There is no other possibility because there are too few natural enemies for the black birds.

In the case of the rook, however, the protection status would first have to be lost.

They hope for more understanding from the population.

However, it is questionable whether hunting alone will solve the problem.

Because crows are clever – and have outwitted many a hunter.

Also read:

Dirt and screaming from the plague of crows: that's what the residents are demanding

Also interesting: defense against crows: farmer scares residents with shooting system - that could cost 50,000 euros

You can find more current news from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck at Merkur.de/Fürstenfeldbruck.