Crow invasion in Somogy, Hungary

Index.hu reports that people are complaining about the huge number of crows and rooks in Somogy county. According to the latest news, they have been causing havoc on Fürdő street in Babócsa town.

Locals are complaining that they cannot get any peace, the loud caws will not stop for more than a few minutes. The birds are cawing 24/7 and flying in groups of a hundred or more.

A local from Babócsa said: “There are crows everywhere. People are freaking out. Hundreds of these birds fly above the houses. This is a huge problem.”

There is an awful number of nests on our hundred year old trees. They look black from the crows.

Some people could not sleep until 4 am because of the birds. They say they have opened the windows because it was too hot inside, but then the noise got too loud to sleep. Locals say there should be a way to thin out the crow population.

The Hungarian Hunters’ National Chamber says that rooks have been a protected species for years now. The hooded crow, on the other hand, can be hunted from July until February. Until 2004 birds like crows, magpies and jays could be hunted all year long in the country. Since we joined the European Union, hunting is limited.

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They also said that in spring, when 6-8 chicks hatch in every nest, the parents have to bring a lot of food to them. This is the time when they do the most damage to animals in the area, like the pheasant, European rabbit and the grey partridge. They also hunt songbirds, water birds and reptiles, says Péter Kemenszky.

If you want to hunt these birds before the 1st of July, you need to pay to get permission. But there are not many who have tried this.

Marcell Molnár, the leader of the Kaposvár group of BirdLife Hungary, says that hooded crows can urbanise very quickly, they steal eggs from the songbirds’ nests and eat rodents. Since rooks are protected, the only way to try and keep their numbers to a minimum would be to destroy their habitats. This is why they have been pruning trees in Siófok. Many of these birds appeared in Segesd too, but the trees there are too tall to trim.

Source: index.hu