I need to borrow Tom for his perspective. These birds look as big if not bigger than the local hawks (maybe redtails?), but the local cats are rather large, too, so I can’t tell if they’re small ravens or large crows.
Your comment about doing a service to the local avian community brought a concept to mind. During a macroeconomics class, our prof expressed the following question: “Is it immoral to let a million people starve, or should we feed them and then have ten million starving people?” Sowell covers the concept in the “Black Rednecks” book (how self-sufficiency is discouraged and a culture of victimization is created when able-bodied people are encouraged to be dependent upon the government.) I’m fine with having more ravens and crows as long as they don’t bother the hummingbirds, purple martins, etc. More rambling. It’s not even 1700. I’ll get back to the tomatoes now :).
A million people are starving only in a disaster situation, and if there is a free flow of information and goods, voluntary action will usually address the temporary needs better than any coordinated effort. Only in a few situations, like the Indian Ocean tsunami, is there a real need for the U.S. Navy to intervene, and that was largely because of the island populations with nowhere to evacuate to and the widespread devastation in undeveloped and largely unfree nations.
Thomas Sowell says there’s never, in modern times, been a catastrophic famine in a state or region with a free press and something like democracy. Shortage becomes starvation when government is at liberty to prevent natural market forces from getting food to where it’s most in demand.