Remember you’re safe if only one crow is approaching you. But that’s only an attempted murder.
As a fellow crow-lover, I agree: these birds are the jam. However, the laws around animals tend to have three rationales:
- Environmental. Animals that are endangered, or that form a key component of an ecosystem, have limits on killing them. Crows don’t meet either. (They’re important in the ecosystem, but killing a few of them won’t matter, given their prevalence).
- Cruelty. Killing animals in ways that are unnecessarily cruel is sometimes outlawed. But even then, there are limits. Glue traps are really awful for the rodents trapped by them, but they’re perfectly legal. Shooting crows isn’t any crueler than plenty of other legal hunting methods.
- Sentimental. Sometimes something is just so cute that we outlaw being mean to it. The laws protecting puppies are much more stringent than the laws protecting Norway rats. Crows, in popular culture, are much closer to rats than puppies.
So until laws around protecting animals change pretty significantly, I’m afraid crows are gonna keep getting shot.
FWIW, here’s a quick overview of how crows are currently protected. Briefly, you either gotta be licensed and in hunting season, or have a good reason, to shoot crows.
This is the trick, you offer them something besides small seeds and they will leave the rest of the mix to the little birds. I find that the Blue Jays love almonds and will fill up on those, while the squirelles love walnuts. They will walk over sunflower seeds to get to the walnuts.
It can be somewhat expensive, so I only do this on days I am working from home.
My crows are afraid of the jays and wait until they fly off. The jays have no problem with getting in their faces. 