Have you Noticed How Many Ravens are in Pine Valley Now?

(This article was contributed by Laura Burgeson)

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking out my kitchen window during a light snowstorm.  Across the street, a woman was unloading a pick-up truck bed and carrying trash bags of items into the house.  I assumed that the bags contained clothing and food for a stay in the mountains.  I was proven right about the food when a raven flew down, tore open one of the bags with his beak, and made off with a whole loaf of bread while the woman was inside the house!

I had to chuckle at the antics of the Raven, but then began to wonder why the population of Common Ravens has grown so greatly in Pine Valley since we have lived here.  I noticed that a treachery of Ravens has taken up residence in my neighborhood!  (Names for a group of Ravens also include an unkindness of Ravens, a rave of Ravens, and a conspiracy of Ravens.)  They caw noisily, roost in trees and make themselves known in multitudes whenever there is food or dead things to eat.  Our orchard of fruit trees has sustained damage from the Ravens when the fruit is ripening and they come in flocks to feast.

I researched the topic and found out that the Raven population has increased recently more than 700 percent in the Mojave Desert, and that this surge is spreading throughout our area as well.  This matters to our ecology because Ravens are willing to feast on everything from trash to other animals.  They especially love to eat the eggs and young of other animals, and so threatened species such as the Desert Tortoise are at great risk of being wiped out.

Ravens are very intelligent, and are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They tend to outsmart many efforts that have been made to repel them, and it is illegal to kill them, and so once a population grows they are very difficult to bring back down to sustainable levels.  The good news is that researchers have found that if the primary sources of food are restricted,  Raven populations tend to modulate themselves naturally.

 

In areas where humans live, the Ravens find ready sources of food that have been left out for cats, dogs, deer, and other smaller birds.  They also feast on trash from uncovered bins, and converge whenever there is roadkill.  Being aware of these facts and acting on them may help avert a population crisis and the death of some of the more sensitive desert ecosystem species. It may also help preserve our more vulnerable birds that we love here in Pine Valley.

The Audubon Society notes:

“even with the work and the greater efforts of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, conservationists fear the problem will only worsen if individuals don't take greater responsibility for their consumption and waste.  “This is a people problem,” Rutledge says, “regardless of how cunning and opportunistic these birds are."