well, they are kinda freaky

As the crows fly, Japanese get fed up, reports IHT :

KAGOSHIMA, Japan: Fanning out in small teams, the men in grey jumpsuits scour the streets and rooftops with binoculars, seeking to guard this city from a growing menace. They look for tell-tale signs: a torn garbage bag, a pile of twigs atop an electric pole or one of the black, winged culprits themselves.

"There's one!" goes up a shout.

Sure enough, one of their quarry flies brazenly overhead: a crow, giving a loud, taunting caw as it passed.

This is the Crow Patrol of Kyushu Electric Power, a utility company, on the hunt for crows whose nests on electric poles have caused a string of power blackouts in this city of a half-million on Japan's southern island of Kyushu.

Blackouts are just one of the problems caused by an explosion in Japan's population of crows, which have grown so numerous they seem to compete with humans for space in this densely crowded nation. Communities are scrambling to find ways to relocate or reduce their crow populations, as ever larger flocks of loud, ominous birds have taken over parks and nature reserves, frightening away human residents.

It is a scourge straight out of Hitchcock, and the crows here look and act the part. With wing spans up to a meter and intimidating black beaks and sharp claws, Japan's crows are big, aggressive and downright scary.

Attacks, though rare, do happen. Hungry crows have bloodied the faces of children while trying to steal candy from their hands. Crows have even carried away baby prairie dogs and ducklings from Tokyo zoos...

...The crow explosion has created a moral dilemma for Japan, a nation that prides itself on nonviolence and harmony with nature, because culling programs are the only truly effective method of population control.

Tokyo was one of the first to take lethal measures, under the lead of its strong-willed governor, Shintaro Ishihara. He angrily ordered the city into action after a crow buzzed his head while he was playing golf, city officials said.

In 2001, the city began setting traps in parks and nature reserves, using raw meat as a lure. In the following seven years, the city captured more than 93,000 crows, which it killed by sticking them in trash bags filled with poison gas. Tokyo says the number of crow-related complaints from residents have dropped as a result...