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Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

nytimes.com

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Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#31

Post by KineticLensman »

nwatson wrote: post #27
KineticLensman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest that non-lethal intimidation wouldn't necessarily work on crows. Crows routinely mob other threat birds (e.g. buzzards, in my experience) and even a single crow will chase a buzzard off. Firing bullets or similar from a drone might not be a good idea in a crowded urban environment (damage to people and / or property). Drones deploying nets to catch them (or at least make them fall out of the sky)? Perhaps…

Lasers. Might incapacitate, kill, or blind crows, would need to avoid collateral damage. Maybe with remote human intervention on the kill switch, one person per bank of 50 drones. Nathan Myhrvold supposedly displayed a mosquito-killing laser photonic fence some years ago [1]. A laser to deal with crows would need to be much more powerful. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3059127/what-happened-to-the-mos...

Firing drone-lasers powerful enough to burn or blind might not be a good idea, especially where beams could bounce off reflective surfaces.

A ground-based laser would pack a lot more power.

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#32

Post by ogennadi »

> Tokyo says the number of crows it has counted in large parks rose to 36,400 in 2001 from 7,000 in the late 1980s, prompting a trapping plan that cut the numbers to 18,200 last year. However, ornithologists say that the actual number in Tokyo is closer to 150,000 birds, and that some crows may have moved to different areas to avoid the traps.

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#33

Post by blarg1 »

veidr wrote: post #26

I live in Tokyo, and and if I become a billionaire, the second thing I will do (after starting a thrash metal guitar university for girls) will be to commission a Planet Earth II level documentary about the crows here. They are fucking HUGE, they own the city (especially on trash-collection days), and they can go really high. When I moved back here I stayed a few weeks in a hotel on the 53rd floor. There were no pige…

Yeah here in Australia, the neighbourhood magpie is the meanest bird you'd ever seen. But we have been feeding it for years, and it hasn't bombed us in a long time... except sometimes it swoops over my shoulder hitting my head with its wing tip. I'm still on alert during bombing season.

Also it still bombs my mum, it hates Asians.

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#34

Post by emodendroket »

nwatson wrote: post #19

Dealing with these crows seems like it would be a good computer-vision/ML/AI/data/drone/"weapons" problem. Killing baby crows in the nest in Tokyo a la [1] would necessarily remain human work, but open-air operations could be done with drones. Would there be a non-lethal approach to harassing crows that would drive them away? If a program chooses the lethal approach, what weapons and disposal methods? How much would…

Armed drones flying around killing crows using machine learning seems like an idea with a huge potential for unintended consequences.

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#36

Post by hackermailman »

stinos wrote: post #8
flatfilefan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder why aren’t there “ten years gone” follow up articles. Like what has happened with crows in Japan since 2008? Media should do more of that as a matter of routine.

Agreed so much. Can't even count the number of times I thought 'what would have happened to ... after all these years?'. From time to time I do see for example documentaries going back to places years after a disaster (Fukushima, BP Gulf, ...) but that's from actively looking for them. Hardly ever this pops up in the news. Well, it's maybe not literally 'news' but if I see the amount of rather trivial events which do…

The media seems to only rehash an event if it contains political talking points they can use. The only follow ups you'll find is in journals/Google scholar.

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#37

Post by Thriptic »

KineticLensman wrote: post #21
nwatson wrote: post #19

Dealing with these crows seems like it would be a good computer-vision/ML/AI/data/drone/"weapons" problem. Killing baby crows in the nest in Tokyo a la [1] would necessarily remain human work, but open-air operations could be done with drones. Would there be a non-lethal approach to harassing crows that would drive them away? If a program chooses the lethal approach, what weapons and disposal methods? How much would…

I'd suggest that non-lethal intimidation wouldn't necessarily work on crows. Crows routinely mob other threat birds (e.g. buzzards, in my experience) and even a single crow will chase a buzzard off. Firing bullets or similar from a drone might not be a good idea in a crowded urban environment (damage to people and / or property). Drones deploying nets to catch them (or at least make them fall out of the sky)? Perhaps…

Could drones be used to fire nets at the birds? The birds could be encapsulated so they can't fly away and then either left to starve to death or be picked up for execution later.

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#38

Post by ics »

veidr wrote: post #26

I live in Tokyo, and and if I become a billionaire, the second thing I will do (after starting a thrash metal guitar university for girls) will be to commission a Planet Earth II level documentary about the crows here. They are fucking HUGE, they own the city (especially on trash-collection days), and they can go really high. When I moved back here I stayed a few weeks in a hotel on the 53rd floor. There were no pige…

You might be interested in a film called “Tokyo Waka”. The filmmakers call it a visual poem but it’s essentially a glimpse of Tokyo through people’s experience with the crowd.

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#39

Post by vram22 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #28
veidr wrote: post #26

I live in Tokyo, and and if I become a billionaire, the second thing I will do (after starting a thrash metal guitar university for girls) will be to commission a Planet Earth II level documentary about the crows here. They are fucking HUGE, they own the city (especially on trash-collection days), and they can go really high. When I moved back here I stayed a few weeks in a hotel on the 53rd floor. There were no pige…

When a coworker and I were in Ginza we spent an hour or so wandering around Hamarikyu Gardens there. That was the first time I saw one of the Japanese crows. At first, I thought it was a raven, but it was brazen enough to land less than 6 feet away from me, and I got to see how big it actually was. It was taller than my knees. Crows in the Pacific Northwest have this delicate little "caw caw" that they make. It's sor…

>It was taller than my knees.

How tall in inches or centimeters?

Re: Japan Fights Crowds of Crows (2008)

#40

Post by yareally »

veidr wrote: post #26

I live in Tokyo, and and if I become a billionaire, the second thing I will do (after starting a thrash metal guitar university for girls) will be to commission a Planet Earth II level documentary about the crows here. They are fucking HUGE, they own the city (especially on trash-collection days), and they can go really high. When I moved back here I stayed a few weeks in a hotel on the 53rd floor. There were no pige…

The University of Washington in conjunction with PBS did a documentary on the crows of Seattle. UW does quite a bit of research on the local (and quite abundant) subspecies of crow, so it's rather interesting.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/a-murder-of-crows-full-episod...

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