Originally published at: Silicon Valley will use lasers to combat bothersome crows | Boing Boing
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5 Likes
That is not going to work the way they think it will…
30 Likes
Crows are smart. They will quickly learn the effective range of a farmer’s shot gun. I look forward to see how they combat lasers.
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Crows do love shiny things. All they need is a bit of broken mirror and pretty good aim to start blinding us left and right.
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This has got me crowing.
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Just wait until the crows get a hold of the lasers. It won’t be pretty.
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Pretty much all these anti-crow measures only work for a short time until the crows ascertain that there’s no real threat and just ignore them. Those traditional scarecrows are not only ineffective, they may actually attract more birds because migrating birds quickly associate them with a food source so when they spot one at a distance it’s like seeing a sign for a fast food restaurant from the highway.
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I used to shoo away crows (do they drive out other birds?) until a couple of documentaries later I’m like why antagonize them, they’re intelligent and remember you so perhaps best to try and make friends.
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Doing my part by feeding up the crows in the East Bay. Trying to condition them to show up when I ring a bell.
Phase 2: drive to the valley in an ice-cream truck hauling an open trailer of peanuts.
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Like Trump looks at the sun.
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They will probably figure out a way to use the lasers against the city, in fact.
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If you initially misread “crows” as “cows”, as I did, this excerpt paints a very different mental picture.
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I love our crows. When you start learning their social dynamic, they’re really fun to watch derping around.
That said, they’re not destroying any of my stuff or pooping on my car, so I’m biaised.
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It’ll be murder.
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Crows and other corvids like magpies are incredibly smart and will not be fooled one minute. They’ve become the apex avian predator in most of the Bay Area.
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Over and above the whole ignoring how smart crows are thing… what really bothers me about this is the mindset, that the other creatures we share this planet with aren’t worth considering in the spaces we build. Rather they are, but only in the sense of “how do we exclude them” rather than “how can we build spaces that works for ALL in this particular environment.” It’s depressing.
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I would happily feed them if they will keep Canada geese off my lawn. I just know one spring they are going to try and nest in the shrubs and we are going to accidentally get mauled while gardening.
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Pretty sure this will either run afoul of the FAA lasers-pointed-at-airplanes laws, or the whole “don’t shine lasers into people’s eyes” legislation, or both. Nobody likes having lasers even flashed into their eyes, and in a place with a lot of reflective surfaces, less-than-perfect aiming systems, and a bunch of targets both corvid and homo sapiens, there’s going to be a lot of lawsuits.
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