Dominique hopes to meet her again at the corner of a street.
“I often think of her,” slips this Parisian retiree.
She'll miss me.
» However, nothing to do with a romantic breakup.
Because the one that occupies the septuagenarian’s thoughts is… a crow.
Stuck for at least three months in the metro, she was finally captured and released this Friday morning.
A happy ending after a long series of twists and turns.
Dominique noticed this black bird for the first time under the neon lights of the Ménilmontant metro station at the beginning of November.
“It was the 4th, I was going to take the metro,” remembers this resident of the neighborhood.
A pigeon would have surprised me less but a crow is rather wild.
I told myself she was going to come out.
» But two days later, the retiree noticed that the animal was still there, perched on the light strips.
Very quickly, the RATP and other associations were notified.
Several local residents are moved by his fate.
Ménilmontant (20th century), January 6.
The crow wanders around the station above the travelers but never uses the tunnels.
LP/Paul Abran
“She had to take a service tunnel”
Dominique and another local resident begin to feed her every day.
They give him corn, pieces of chicken, chopped steak.
“We also gave him water in a large container,” he continues.
She liked to soak in it.
» But as the weeks go by, the situation gets bogged down.
Several attempts were made to free the bird, without success.
At the end of December, a specialist was finally contacted.
Frédéric Jiguet, professor at the Natural History Museum, is notably in charge of the research program on crows.
The ornithologist intervenes for the first time on January 8 during the day “to see the bird”.
But very quickly, he realizes that the crow - who knows his new underground environment perfectly - will not be easily caught.
“You had to come back when the station is closed with nets,” he warns.
Also read “Love, glory and crows” at the Jardin des Plantes: diving into the secret life of the black birds of Paris
A first operation is then scheduled for the night of January 31 to February 1.
“Except that on January 26, the crow disappeared,” continues the specialist.
Another appears at Parmentier station, which is three stations from Ménilmontant but not on the same line.
» Is it the same?
Theories differ but for Frédéric Jiguet, there is little doubt.
“It’s already exceptional for one crow to be found in a metro station, so two would be really improbable,” he says.
She certainly could have used a service tunnel to get around.
»
The night intervention of January 31 is still maintained.
Frédéric Jiguet obtains the agreement of the manager of this new line.
But an unforeseen event once again disrupts the program.
Construction trains with excavators and stones spend a good part of the night in the station.
And around thirty employees from a German company arrive on the quay for training.
Annoyed by all this commotion, the crow ends up fleeing through a tunnel to Rue Saint-Maur, the next station.
“500,000 crows killed each year”
A new operation is planned immediately for the night of February 8 to 9.
An entire safety procedure must be followed so that the electricity is cut off on the track, in particular.
Around 2:30 a.m., Frédéric Jiguet and two members of the RATP finally had the green light to install nets in front of the two tunnels surrounding the station.
But time is running out.
“Everything had to be dismantled at 4:15 a.m. for traffic to resume,” says the professor.
Based on his previous observations, he developed a strategy: “annoy the crow” until it tries to escape through one of these two exits.
“We were walking in her direction and she was flying the other way,” he recalls.
After two or three trips back and forth, she finally made her way towards one of the tunnels and was caught in the net.
»
Frédéric Jiguet recovers a “very stressed” animal in his hands but “in good shape”.
He measures the bird, weighs it, puts a red ring numbered 150 on it. Around 5 a.m., the crow is finally released near the Père Lachaise cemetery, a place which serves as a “dormitory” for many of its peers.
“For the moment, we have no news yet but thanks to its ring, I am almost certain that enthusiasts will very quickly find it,” laughs the ornithologist.
The one who has just published “Long live the crows”, an advocacy book in defense of these animals, also wants to see a symbol behind this story.
“It's extraordinary to see all the energy that was deployed to free this bird, when every year 500,000 are killed in the French countryside to the general indifference of urban residents.
» It remains to be seen whether the metro crow will become, in spite of herself, the “ambassador” of this cause.