Hawks helping keep Oakland streets safe by dispersing crow roosts
Follow Adam Baz to work and it might feel like stepping onto the set of a Hitchcock movie.
The moment he steps out of his van with his co-worker Jasper, a 6-year-old steely eyed Harris's hawk, the sky is instantly painted black, as thousands of scared crows fly off nearby trees.
"Crows sleep communally. We call them roosts, and they're these large congregations of birds," he said. "They can be hundreds if not thousands of birds sleeping in dense concentrations."
For the last few weeks, Baz of Hawk on Hand and his team of falconers have been working hand in glove clear out a flock of crows from Oakland's Federal Building.
Unlike traditional falconry, the goal here isn't to hunt, but to chase off nuisance birds. And while Baz insists he has nothing against crows, it's the mess they leave behind that has people crying foul.
"Their droppings can be a huge problem, they can be unhygienic, they can be unsightly, they can smell bad so for a variety of reasons; it's not desirable for the crows to be sleeping in huge numbers and pooping all over the sidewalks," he said.
Jasper essentially functions as a high-flying scare crow, trained to follow a laser pointer as he hops from tree to tree, sending a message to other birds that a predator is nearby.
His favorite snack is little bits of frozen mice, which Baz dispenses to keep him both motivated and full enough not to eat any of the birds.
The practice, known as Falconry Bird Abatement, has been soaring in recent years, as people and companies look for humane ways to encourage birds to sleep somewhere else.
Mary Simms, the spokesperson for the General Services Administration which manages the Federal Building, said before Jasper the plaza right was covered in bird droppings. Not anymore.
"We've really seen a huge reduction in the number of crows in the area and no longer need to have the janitorial staff continuously clean the plaza from all the excrement left behind," she said.
At end of the day Baz and Jasper head home, leaving behind a crow free building.
The best part, according to Baz, the crows are now free to take their flock party somewhere else.
"There are maybe two or three [crows] that are trying to come into sleep. So, the results are really noticeable," he said.