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Personally I have no time for captive wild animals and birds in cages, the idea makes me uneasy and I always advise people that the best place for wildlife is the wild. Having said that I have from time to time kept strange pets myself, what happens is that clients find a young animal or bird, bring them to my surgery and then my staff and myself are left with the task of hand rearing them. The danger of course is that hand reared wildlife inevitably becomes imprinted on their human attendants and they then cannot reasonably be released to the wild because they would not cope and might die a miserable death. In the past we have had foxes, squirrels, badgers, and at present we have a pet Carrion Crow who rejoices in the name of Kagro, this has given me an interest in the crow family.
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In a way there is no such thing as an individual crow, the word crow is a group name referring to a number of different birds. In Britain we have the Raven, the Jay, the Magpie, the Jackdaw, the Rook, the Carrion and Hooded Crow, and the Chough. The crow family properly called Corvidae is a varied family, the Raven can have a four feet wingspan and the Jay has as bright plumage as many a tropical bird, the Jackdaw talks and the Magpie steals glittery objects. Old country people will tell you that Rooks can count and that they hold Rook Parliaments to pass judgment on and punish their peers.
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Crows in general have a sinister reputation, you commonly see them portrayed in such scenarios as horror films and in the introduction of The Six Feet Under television series, this image probably developed in the middle ages as crows would be seen feasting on the bodies left on the battleground, and for being no strangers to the fruits of the gallows. A gathering of crows is called a “murder” by the way ! They have also had a place in literature through the ages, they were first mentioned in ancient Egyptian writings, in Greek mythology Apollo is associated with the Raven. Odin the Norse God had a Raven on each shoulder, one called Hugin and one called Munin who used to fly away each day and return and tell Odin of the things that men do. In more recent times that happy fellow Edgar Allen Poe published a poem called The Raven, a very dark and melancholy work. And of course we still have Ravens at the Tower of London to this day with their associated legend, so you can see I am in good company having a Crow as a companion!!!!
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Kagro however is not dark and melancholy, he is very tame, bright, and highly intelligent. British zoologists were recently astonished when a captive crow called Betty fashioned a hook out of wire to reach food. It is the first time any animal including the chimpanzee has been found to make a new tool for a specific task, say Oxford University researchers. They believe the bird shows some understanding of cause and effect. Kagro is at ease with the staff members who feed him and clearly recognises them as he is wary with people he has never seen, he plays games with sticks and will retrieve them and bring them back to be thrown again. I have spent many hours trying to make him talk, he will on occasion utter a sort of recognisable hello but he can also make a wide variety of strange and wonderful sounds other than the usual crow “caw “. He is most familiar with me of course as I raised him myself at home, I can stroke him, feed him from my hand, and he spreads his wings and makes a strange crow dance when he first sees me in the morning.
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Having Kagro at the surgery for the last four years has been a great experience but I would still stand by what I said in the opening paragraph. He will surely live longer and more comfortably with us but he is not free, it would have been best if a bird like a Kagro could have stayed in the wild.
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