Beware of crows' strong revenge instincts

[Naveed Yaseen]

* Can crows wait for seven months to take their revenge on a human being... well here is one such case

By Fawad Ali Shah

KARACHI: Contrary to their size, crows are a mindful and dangerous lot; when annoyed, they ruthlessly attack in flocks of hundreds. If you are trying to hurt a crow, you are surely cruising for a bruising.

To a layman, they may appear to be like any other helpless insignificant birds. But who could have imagine how revengeful these birds can get? Crows can bear whatever you throw at them but if you attack their spawn, your making room for a whole lot of winged trouble.

These birds never forget, they never forget a face or what that face did; they remember any enemy till the day they die and they take revenge in groups. “In the laws of crows there is no Supreme Court or Jirga system. They have one slogan and that is, ‘blood for blood’,” claims Dr Ahmad Shah, a bird expert and a well known researcher. According to him, crows are a sort of species that will let everything slide but will never forgive or forget an enemy. They follow the policy of ‘Jeo aur Jeenay do’, but if you mess with them, you mess with their whole family.

Muhammad Sadiq, 43, manages a restaurant at Pan Mandi. If you want to know the lengths crows can go to take revenge, ask him. “They have brutally killed the owner of this restaurant,” Sadiq says, erratically looking over his head into the tree. “Seven months ago, a baby crow fell from the tree and somehow managed to reach the table where the restaurant owner, Jalil, who hails from Lahore, was sitting,” he reveals.

Jalil, hit the small crow softly with a stick to push it to the side and out of the restaurant, unfortunately, the bird died. Then came the revenge.

“They gathered around the restaurant like a mass procession and started attacking Jalil,” Sadiq said, adding that somehow the restaurant owner managed to escape. He was so horrified by the incident that he flew to Lahore and did not return to Karachi for seven months and the day he did returned proved to be his last.

“When he came back, all the crows stretched their wings and started screeching. They attacked him, violently pecking, snipping, scratching at his head and chest,” said Sadiq.

“They only spared him after he lost his sense.”

Jalil remained in hospital for 34 hours and then succumbed to his injuries. “They remember their enemies for a dangerously long time,” said Sadiq with a shudder.

Zeeshan, a man from Quetta, got a piece of the same revenge. Once in order to get rid of the crows he and his colleagues caught one and took it to a hotel room where they were are working as waiters. “I get shivers every time I remember that incident,” Zeeshan said, adding that when they caught the crow, a large number of crows gathered around the maingate of the hotel and even began attacking the customers. “We freed the crow, but we ourselves, did not leave the hotel for five days.” Stay away from crows, that’s my advice, he adds.

Ahmad Shah, an expert on the matter, says that crows are not only an intelligent bird but also very revengeful. He advises parents to protect their children from playing with the birds or harming their offspring. “Crows can die but never let their enemy live,” said Shah. “Crows usually search for food alone; you see them fighting each other over food but when it comes to protecting their kind, they unite no matter what the cause.”

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...09_pg12_10