The crows in Lake View Cemetery may very well be hungry. If so, they picked a densely populated place to wait for a meal. Or maybe it’s just the shakeout from the lawsuit swirling between neighbors in Portage Bay over an alleged “large-scale systematic crow and pigeon feeding operation” in the neighborhood to the north of Capitol Hill.
CHS visited the neighborhood recently in search of a massive murder of crows, a flock of seagulls, or a disgusting pile of pigeons. We only found a few noble individuals — and some signs of larger gatherings.
Way back in February, “the girl who gets gifts from birds” was a worldwide sensation. But it turned out that, locally, neighbors weren’t as excited about the Portage Bay family who had befriended all those crows.
In a King County civil case filed in August, Matt Ashbach and Christine Yokan sued E Shelby neighbors Lisa and Gary Mann over a litany of avian transgressions:
Apparently, birds are pretty messy. We blame the pigeons.
We also blame the rats.
Apparently, birds are also noisy:
According to the lawsuit, neighbors took action. But nothing — not even an air gun — stopped the feeding frenzy.
According to the plaintiffs, in the wake of the petition, the Manns “escalated” the situation by moving the “feeding operation” to the backyard. “Defendants constructed additional elevated feeding stations also by attaching large trays or troughs to trees and poles on their property,” the lawsuit reads. The neighbors claim the Manns “constructed additional elevated feeding stations also by attaching large trays or troughs to trees and poles on their property” and filled the troughs as many as six times a day, even hiring employees “to allow more voluminous feedings to take place.”
The suit further alleges that crows and birds are disease-ridden vermin.
And they also have nasty bathroom habits:
The plaintiffs were seeking an injunction limiting the family to “no more than a quarter pound of food per day to local wildlife,” $200,000 in damages, attorney’s fees, and “further relief as may be just and warranted.”
There has been no update in the case since it was filed August 10th and we don’t know what if any Portage Bay feedings continue.
As for those crows in Lake View, maybe they are just on the move before winter comes.
