Credit: Anna Nelson
Dead_Crow.jpg
  • Anna Nelson

It’s that time of year where our nation fixates on dead birds, and Portland’s crows are apparently obliging. It’s actually pretty worrying.

The Portland Police Bureau just sent out a strange news release, detailing around 30 dead crows discovered around downtown Portland this morning—in Waterfront Park and Chapman and Lownsdale squares (the Merc‘s Anna Nelson snapped the picture on this post earlier today, right outside our Old Town offices). The birds are “suffering seizures and flopping on the ground,” and no one’s sure why. The Audubon Society is investigating.

Here’s the full release:

On Wednesday November 26, 2014, at 8:12 a.m., Central Precinct officers responded to Waterfront Park on the report of several crows suffering seizures and flopping on the ground.

Officers arrived and located several dead crows in the area. Portland Parks & Recreation Park Rangers located additional crows and are working with police.

Additional dead crows were found in the area of Chapman and Lownsdale Square parks and Lovejoy Fountain.

In all, approximately 30 dead crows were found dead from unknown causes.

Portland Firefighters responded to assist and did not find any indication hazardous materials in the air. Officers and firefighters checked the area and did not find anything apparent that would have caused the birds to suddenly die.

The Audubon Society is responding to assist officers with these unusual incidents and will be conducting follow-up to try and answer what happened to these birds.

At this point, there is no information on why the birds died and no apparent risk to members of the community.

Anyone coming across dead crows in Portland parks should not move them and should call the Park Ranger Hotline at (503) 823-1637.

I'm a news reporter for the Mercury. I've spent a lot of the last decade in journalism — covering tragedy and chicanery in the hills of southwest Missouri, politics in Washington, D.C., and other matters...

8 replies on “There Are Dead Crows All Around Downtown Portland”

  2. Maybe 15 minutes ago I walked past a dead crow on the Burnside median. Then immediately behind me someone grabbed the crow by its legs and walked it about 5 feet to a tree and buried it under some leaves. It was fucking gnarly.

  3. I noticed that something was fishy about the downtown crows last week. Here’s some anecdotal crow rambling ( or “crambling”). Usually when a giant flock or flocks move in to downtown during the Fall, pedestrians can see the dirty birds roosting in the trees. In years past, there have been giant shitslicks on the sidewalks, particularly on the “transit mall” downtown, where there are many trees. This Autumn, I’ve noticed the shitslicks (albeit much smaller than usual), but the crows aren’t to be seen in the trees. Instead, the crows are sitting around roof ledges. This seemed fishy to me.

  4. Crows are dicks. On par with assholes with modified mufflers from a city livability / pleasantness standpoint.

    Having said that, hopefully its not environmental or the result of someone intentionally harming them.

    I suspect that the crows reached some level of consciousness where they realized “hey, we’re a bunch of assholes” and decided to off themselves en masse.

  6. Brad paisley, that was the best blogtown comment in recent memory. New portmanteau? Check. Disgustingly graphic descriptor? Check. Indecipherable use of quotation marks? Check. Bizarrely detailed observations on the goings-on of Portland’s crow population? Check.

    That had everything.

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