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Roosting ravens make a mess Kevin Allerston Northern News Services Published Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The problem has gotten so bad management at Northern Heights is considering the installation of bird spikes to deter the large winter resident birds from hanging out above the building's 49 Avenue entrance, where they've been leaving a mess with their droppings.
For weeks, hundreds of ravens have been lining any area large enough to perch around Centre Square Mall and Northern Heights.
"They've been a pain in the butt," said Northern Heights property manager Ryan Sundberg.
"They have been hanging out over our doorway and our front steps have been getting covered in raven crap for the last two months.
"Because it's winter time, I have to have my maintenance guy go out there and scrape it and it's like two inches thick."
He said Northern Heights staff will discuss ways of deterring the birds in the near future, including the possibility of installing bird control spikes on ledges, which are typically 30 cm long and reduce the area available for large birds to land on. The idea is in the early stages and he doesn't know how much it would cost to instal them, adding it would not be passed on to tenants.
"I feel like I am in an Edgar Allan Poe poem, pretty much," said Northern Heights resident Leslie Merrithew with a laugh.
"I mean, we live up on the 15th floor and we've even had three just come and perch on the balcony and stare in the window. It's crazy."
Aside from the ravens hanging out on her balcony, the birds are causing a mess on her car.
"Oh my gosh, my car is covered ... I just park on the street overnight and it's all over it," she said.
Ecology North's 2011 Christmas Bird Count found 2,091 ravens in the city, down from a record number of 2,613 the year before. However, there is no doubt there is a thicker than normal concentration of the sometimes troublesome birds downtown this winter.
"I can understand, they're cold. It's a source of heat with the lamps," Merrithew said.
She said she doesn't remember seeing ravens in these kinds of numbers before, adding they don't worry her.
"I'll have to look up more often to see if I'm going to get pooped on," she said.
"I mean, I grew up on the bottom of Matonabee Street by the trail, and it's just I've never seen a congregation like that. This is the only time I've seen them in these kind of numbers."
Merrithew said she doesn't know why the ravens are coming, but thinks it could be due to the windy weather of late.
Bob Bromley, a bird specialist and MLA for Weledeh, said he'd need to see more data on weather conditions before linking the influx of ravens at the mall with windy weather, but he does entertain the possibility that it could be because there are more raptors preying in the Yellowknife area than in previous years. The theory is that the ravens are gathering together downtown where they're safer from predators.
While there was confusion as to whether or not the ravens were actually roosting downtown when they were first spotted in large concentrations just before Christmas, Bromley said it's clear they are roosting now.
"This is a pretty rare problem to have, them roosting on your buildings. They're ducking their heads in and sitting down on their legs and feet to preserve their heat, in the posture that would be typical of roosting," he said. "That's an interesting question because I think there would be less inclination for the birds of prey to be in town."
A representative with the Department of Health and Social Services declined to comment about possible health impacts from raven droppings.
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