TERRE HAUTE —
Crows in Terre Haute are on a power play.
In hockey, a “power play” occurs when one team has more players on the ice than the opposition while one or two of its players sit in the penalty box. A power play can result in as much as a 5-to-3 player advantage.
In this city, the crows’ advantage is often 100,000-to-3. The Detroit Red Wings would be envious. The Terre Haute Crow Patrol, by contrast, needs more players to stop the power play by the archrival Terre Haute Black Wings (a.k.a. the crows).
Since the 1990s, the big, dark, smart birds have turned the city into their winter resort. Ornithologists speculate that the crows come here because of an ideal mix of water (in the Wabash River), food (in farm fields), nighttime light (at parking lots and streets), and heat (from urban pavement and buildings). The crow population fluctuates, but it’s ranged from 40,000 to six digits. For more than 20 years, the city had no coordinated plan of attack. Residents and businesses had to cope however possible. Then, early in 2010, a Crow Committee organized, with support of the Mayor’s Office, and the Crow Patrol was born.
With limited funding for pyrotechnics and lasers, which help scatter the birds, and some assistance from a professional wildlife service, the Crow Patrol relies on volunteer help. Typically, a handful or less, these folks labor in tough circumstances, trying to disrupt the crows’ winter-long routine of foraging west of the Wabash from dawn to dusk, and then flying east back into the city to congregate in warmth and artificial lighting to avoid their predators, owls.
For their morning rounds, between 6 and 7:30 a.m., Crow Patrolers don bright orange vests and drive to key locales to disperse murders of crows with green laser lights, just before the birds leave town at sunrise. (Most of us are sleeping, eating breakfast or getting dressed for work.) Around sundown, between 5:30 and 6:45 p.m., patrol members again drive to crow hotspots and fire pyrotechnic guns to shake the stubborn critters with the sparkling, noisy fireworks. (Most of us are eating dinner.) The patrol functions from October through March through wind, rain, snow, sleet, ice and falling temperatures. (Most of us find indoor activities during those months.)
This is their third winter of trying to outwit, outlast and outplay the crows. The members’ task is frustrating, wet, cold, but also important. Consider that, according to a New York Times report — yes, the nation’s most famous publication came here last winter for a feature story on the patrol — Union Hospital spent more than $100,000 two years earlier to clean up crow droppings. Since its formation, the Crow Patrol has made the hospital, Indiana State University, the downtown district and other heavily populated areas a priority.
When the project began, organizers hoped the teams of 20-plus volunteers would assemble daily. In reality, the number varies between two and five, according to Joy Sacopulos, a patrol mainstay and a co-founder of the Crow Committee. As a result, a couple of patrolers must focus on clearing a few popular crow hangouts, rather than a broader, sustained, systematic strategy to disturb the birds and persuade them to pick another town.
The Crow Patrol provides a valuable service. It helps prevent poop-splotched sidewalks, storefronts and cars, broken tree limbs (from roosting crows), and sleepless nights (from their endless “caws”). The diligent patrol members deserve praise and, most of all, assistance.
How can you pitch in? Volunteer by calling the Crow Hotline at 812-244-2709 or 812-234-2718. Better yet, show up at the parking lot on City Hall’s north side any evening at 5:30. The crows leave each March, so the season has reached its fourth period. Help the patrol finish at full strength and clean the city like a Zamboni.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: Crow Patrol deserves praise, but needs help even more
Small group making an impact for city
- Editorials
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
Almost every Hoosier who starts college intends to finish. Unfortunately, those who arrive on campus unprepared in key academic areas are far less likely to fulfill that aspiration.
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EDITORIAL: Insult to an independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
The nasty, hazardous messes lurking in the community raise a bottom-line, red-flag question. Could these environmental problems have been monitored and, thus, prevented?
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
A conservative Republican governor has super majorities in both branches of the legislature. One might suspect such one-party government leads to major changes in public policy. This did not happen in 2013 in Indiana.
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
Good-paying jobs. -
MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
Emotions today remain strong and raw in wake of Monday’s terror bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
You’ve got to stop. You know you do it. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused a tragedy already.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
For the second year, United Way of the Wabash Valley has teamed up with local sponsors to select and honor a group of women who have made outstanding contributions to their communities, professions and families.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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EDITORIAL: Crack down on dumpers
There is a reason it’s called “illegal” dumping. It’s against the law. And there is a very good reason illegal dumping is against the law.
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Season of Day 2s arrives
Calendars in Cincinnati contain one extra holiday — Opening Day, traditionally the first Monday in April.
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Congress fails to recognize problem of education costs
Who hasn’t gotten this message yet? The cost of a college degree has become unaffordable for a wide swath of middle-class America.
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign




