The old magic seems to work: Cedar Rapids ‘crow coffins’ move horde of crows out of Greene Square Park

As if by magic, the crows were gone early last night from the downtown's Greene Square Park.

A Cedar Rapids invention - the so-called crow coffin - apparently still works to drive away the horde of crows that, otherwise, descend on the park on winter nights, leaving behind a mess of bird droppings when they leave in the morning.

After calls anew about the defecating crows this week, city forestry crews on Friday afternoon placed seven of the crow coffins in the park's trees. The crow coffin is a piece of board on which two dead crows are attached, one face up, one face down, to the side of the board visible from the sky.

Former city veterinarian Russell Anthony came up with the idea after years of frustration - he banged together tin garbage lids at one point and blasted the sound of gunshots through the night at another, all to no avail - trying to drive crows out of the downtown park, the relative warmth of which attracts the big, black birds by the thousands on winter nights.

“We'll see how it works and whether we need to add any more boards next week,” Daniel Gibbins, the city's parks superintendent, said on Friday.

The crow-coffin placement was a multi-departmental one: The Police Department shot the birds; the Animal Control Division mounted the birds on boards; forestry crews placed the birds in trees; and the director of parks directed the work.

The Police Department on Friday reported that two police officers and a police commander used bird shot to bring down the 14 crows that were placed on the seven boards. The shooting took place in Greene Square Park about 12:30 a.m. Friday, the department reported.