Crows Plotting Revenge? Or World Domination?
A Twitter user shared that after days of a crow shooting operation in his residential area, a flock of crows came to pay their ‘tribute’ to their fallen comrades.
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Did you know that crows are vengeful creatures? They can recognize your face, remember it and target you in the future if you do them dirty.
Yes, they are known to hold grudges like your exes.
Recently, a Twitter user (@ZZulfikli) shared a video on his account of a group of crows seemingly having a meeting in front of his house. His tweet went viral as most people found his encounter interesting. The tweet garnered 2.3M views and 1.8K retweets at the time of writing.
He said that last week in his residential area, there was a Crow-Shooting Operation and they exterminated quite a number of crows.
But just a few days ago at night, @ZZulfikli encountered an odd and creepy incident that looks like the start of a horror movie.
He noticed the birds just hanging out at the spot doing nothing. He assumed they were holding a meeting to plot revenge for their fallen comrades.
Last week kat area taman aku, ada operasi menembak gagak. Banyak la gagak mati. Ahad malam baru ni, tiba2 gagak banyak datang berkumpul. Seram siot, seolah mereka bermesyuarat nak balas dendam. pic.twitter.com/muWJZlcbgG
— ZaYeD ZulFikLi (@ZZulfikli) July 25, 2023
Yeah. pic.twitter.com/fhn9XtEMzI
— ZaYeD ZulFikLi (@ZZulfikli) July 25, 2023
Netizens were amused
A lot of people chimed into his comment section and expressed their amusement with the situation.
Some joked that these were family members who were late to the funeral.
Yang datang tuh datang ziarah family arwah sebab baru dengar khabar berita. Family pulak bawak melawat ke tempat kejadian.
— Pokpih (@Pokpih) July 25, 2023
Some even shared their fair share of crow vengeance.
Yup. Gagak boleh balas dendam. Kami pernah kena attack gara2 ayah tembak ahli kumpulan mereka. In the end, terpaksa guna semburan api halau mereka
— Azhar\ ازهر\AJ (@rahzamdy) July 25, 2023
Ada students buat experiment dulu kat gagak. Dia and the gang gi tangkap satu group gagak, lepas dia buat experiment tu diorg lepaskan semua.
— (@ShiroSpade) July 25, 2023
Then sampai 5 tahun gagak2 kat town dia akan kacau group ni. Even masa balik school reunion pun still kena kacau 😱
Wei betul. Dulu kucing kat rumah tangkap sekor gagak. Gagak tu Tak mati tapi takleh terbang. Keesokan Tu banyak pulak gagak datang lepak depan rumah . Siap hinggap atas pagar. Sampai kucing takut nak keluar rumah .
— The Solo Rider (@TheSoloRiderMY) July 25, 2023
Gagak ni jenis terhutang budi dan juga berdendam. Sebab tu pemburu gagak perlu tutup muka atau bukan ornag tempatan,
— AliffShanusi(@aliffshanusi) July 25, 2023
Gagak akan balas dendam semula atau dia akan buat bising bila nampak orang tadi lalu. Beri amaran berjaga jaga
One user even told a Malaysian superstition of not imitating the sound of a crow. If you provoke a crow by imitating it, soon your ears will be split or torn in two. But that’s just an old wives’ tale. Or is it?
Ni betul,nenek pernah cerita, masa dia kecik, dia mengajuk seekor burung gagak ni, jerit kat burung tu “Aak aak aak”. Bila malam, dia mimpi burung gagak datang & gigit telinga dia. Bila terbangun,memang betul telinga dia berdarah sebab cuping koyak. Sampai sekarang ada parut tue
— The Astronaut LOCKDOWN Unosarah🐹🐱SLOW (@unosarah1) July 25, 2023
Fun Facts about Crows
Besides recognizing faces and holding a grudge, here are some other fun facts about these creatures most of us don’t know:
1. They are the smartest birds in the world
Crows have the largest ratio of brain to body than any bird in the world. Their ratio of brain to body is even bigger than humans.
In Japan, they have been known to use traffic to crack open nuts (they know red is stop and green is go).
2. They can help babysit other baby crows
Having a unique social relationship with their family groups, crows are known to help unrelated crows with their young. They bring food, chase off predators, and even groom other crows’ babies to ensure the survival of their community.
They’re like an unpaid babysitter that naturally loves kids. That’s convenient.
3. They can make tools
Some types of crows can also make and use tools.
The New Caledonian Crows can make a hook J-shaped from twigs to extract insects from tight crevices. Only a few species can create tools that help them survive in the wild, which are Chimpanzees, Orang Utans, New Caledonian Crows and us humans.
4. They hold funerals
They don’t really hold a funeral but they are known to gather around the dead in hundreds.
Scientists think that this is a part of the survival strategy, in which the birds are learning about any potential threats nearby. They won’t revisit any spot where they encountered a dead crow, even though food is abundant there.
5. They have regional dialects
Different populations of crows have differences in their language, just like humans do. When a crow changes its social group, it will try to mimic the calls of the dominant flock members, sort of like a new kid trying to follow the popular kid’s slang.
However, no matter how smart or amusing crows are, most residents do not like these creatures and they are generally viewed as pests.
In the huge amount of uncontrollable breeding, crows can cause a lot of damage to you. They cause noise disturbances, have a bad odour, eat agricultural crops, contaminate areas with their excrement, rummage through trash and pose unhygienic threats.
Hence, it is common to see Crow-Shooting Drives in Malaysia to control the population of these pests. Once a year or more, a lot of city councils organize a competition for licensed shooters to shoot these birds. The person who shoots the most number of crows gets a prize. Another way to control their population is offering a RM5 bounty per bird during a local council’s yearly operation.
In contrast, some netizens and concerned citizens do oppose this method of extermination, saying the root of the problem is not uncontrollable breeding of the pests, but us humans’ irresponsible littering and poor waste management.
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