“It’s a holdover from when those birds were considered big-time agricultural pests,” said Manitoba Conservation spokesman Jack Dubois. “(The hunters) are within the law in the sense that those two species of birds aren’t protected under the federal or provincial law.”
That is, no hunting licence or special permit is required.
The shoots are like fishing derbies, but with nuisance birds the prey, and rifles the means. Because they’re a cagey bird, magpies count for two points, while crows count for just one.
Hunters have been known to bag up to 50 birds in a day at some Manitoba shoots. Whoever has the most points wins a trophy. Participants then hold a barbecue — not of crows and magpies.
About 40 people will partake in the Ste. Rose event. Professional people like lawyers and doctors participate in shoots closer to Winnipeg, participants say.
“It’s just a sport. There are about 10 clubs in Manitoba,” said participant Joe Wanicka of Ste. Rose du Lac.
Some shooters come more prepared than others. James Rath, who runs outfitter business Bushfans Paradise in Ste. Rose, uses an electronic device that blares out distressed owl calls. The crow family is known to attack owls. “Sometimes I get 20-30 (crows and magpies) at a time,” Rath said.
Manitoba Conservation prefers that participants use shotguns because the pellets only carry a short distance, but some participants use .22- or .17-calibre long-range rifles, with bullets that carry up to 1.6 kilometres.
Most shoots in Manitoba are in cattle country like Ste. Rose, 260 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Magpies have been known to peck out the eyes of newborn calves, livestock people say. Or a magpie will peck and take chunks of meat out of a calf. One shooter said a calf in the Ste. Rose area was recently paralyzed for six days because a magpie gouged its spine.
The corvid family of birds are also notorious scavengers, raiding other birds’ nests for eggs and young ones. The birds are considered such a nuisance that getting permission to shoot on large land holdings isn’t a problem — the shooters often receive invitations. “People will ask us to come to their place,” Wanicka said. “If you’ve got lots of (corvids), you won’t have any songbirds.”
“They wipe out all the little finches,” maintained Dan Nault, a regular participant in shoots. “There’s really nothing positive to say about them.”
Don’t tell that to local naturalist Tom Rheaume. He wrote a book about crows many years ago that went unpublished, but photocopied versions are used by naturalist groups. Rheaume calls the shoots “ridiculous.”
“It’s a waste of time and energy. It doesn’t do anything to control the (corvid) population,” Rheaume said.
“The crow has got a bad reputation because it’s black. Your pet cat probably goes out and does more damage than a crow,” Rheaume maintained. “They’re the most intelligent bird we’ve got. They have family units. They mate for life, which is more than you can say for people.”
Urbanites complain that crows have taken up residence in cities like never before because they like tall trees and back lane garbage. However, Rheaume said bird counts indicate the corvid population has come down in the last decade, likely due to West Nile.
At shoots, participants will sometimes bait the birds with scraps of meat. Other shooters will drive up and down farm roads.
Nault claims the shoots reduce the risk of humans contracting West Nile disease.
But Rheaume thinks the theory is hogwash. “There are 300 species of birds that carry West Nile, and most often they are warblers,” Rheaume said.
Manitoba Health is also unconvinced that shoots do much to control the spread of West Nile. Crows and magpies die off fairly quickly after being stung by an infected mosquito, a spokesperson explained.
Most other animals are protected by law from being shot. Some exceptions are red-winged blackbirds, grackles and ground squirrels. Red squirrels are protected because they are regarded as a fur-bearing animal, “but it’s not like we’re sending conservation officers into the woods to check,” Dubois said
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