Jim O鈥橪eary usually dons a beige Tilley hat when commuting to his job at Langara College 鈥� not for casual, middle-age-man fashion purposes but survival.
O鈥橪eary thinks the hat deters aerial attacks from a particularly cranky crow that鈥檚 been known to swoop down on unsuspecting pedestrians leaving and entering the Joyce SkyTrain station. And he should know. He鈥檚 the creator of Crowtrax, an open-source Geographic Information System (GIS), which he developed as a Continuing Studies instructor to map crow attacks across Vancouver.
With nesting season running April to July, getting dive-bombed by a protective crow has become a rite of passage for most Vancouverites.
Over the years, O鈥橪eary has heard it all 鈥� from attacks that draw blood and talons caught in victims鈥� hair to roving gangs of the winged marauders that chase their targets for blocks.
When he launched the site in 2016, it garnered about 800 reports 鈥� now he receives approximately 1,500 accounts of 鈥渉uman/crow interaction鈥� a year. According the Crowtrax data, danger zones include downtown and the West End, which doesn鈥檛 surprise O鈥橪eary.
鈥淲here you have more people, you have more restaurants and, inevitably, you have a French fry on the sidewalk, and that鈥檚 what crows like,鈥� he says. 鈥淚n the downtown area, in particular, the sidewalks are very narrow so the trees are very close to buildings, and the crows like the tall leafy trees. So when you get tall leafy trees very close to people and restaurants, you鈥檙e going to get a lot of crow/human interaction.鈥�
Last year, Crowtrax added a new feature where users could indicate whether or not their avian encounter was with local . However, the feature has failed to take off, admits O鈥橪eary.
鈥淢aybe people don鈥檛 realize it鈥檚 Canuck the crow, or maybe it鈥檚 that Canuck the crow doesn鈥檛 attack many people.鈥�
While tracking airborne assaults has provided O鈥橪eary insight into crow behaviour, it鈥檚 also given him a window into the soul of those on the receiving end of such attacks.听听
鈥淟ooking at the reports over the years, I think there鈥檚 a sense of therapy,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not like when you see a dog growling, where you can prepare. Crows generally attack you from behind. And it鈥檚 very offending. And people have a need to say, 鈥業鈥檓 a person and this is what happened to me.鈥欌��
O鈥橪eary, who vets all the reports before they go up on the map, says he鈥檚 noticed another common online behaviour of humans.听
鈥淭here were a lot of bogus reports at the start. Someone would report, 鈥楢 crow followed me into a bar and ran off with my girlfriend鈥� 鈥� that sort of thing. So I didn鈥檛 want to have those up [on the site] because it takes away from the credibility.鈥�
To report a crow attack or see crow hotspots across the city, go to .
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