The Middle of Nowhere

If wild animals came with instruction manuals, somewhere in big, bold print would read the words, "When animal is no longer pleasant to be around release way out in the middle of nowhere." However, somewhere else on the same page in teeny, tiny print, sandwiched between a reminder that possessing most wild animals is illegal and a warning that this animal might bite, would read the words, "directions to nowhere not included."

Havoc, the Crow, arrived at the Care Center in winter of 1997. He was picked up in downtown Portland by a concerned citizen who witnessed him swimming in water fountains and barking at blonde women. We knew he was no ordinary crow from the get-go; he immediately released himself from his cage, flew over to the sink, turned on the faucet and had himself a nice long cool drink. Once satiated, he turned to us, gave three high pitched barks, "whoop, whoop, whoop," and bowed.

As the local media deluges us almost daily with reminders that even the great vast ocean is not a big enough space to prevent an imprinted killer whale from getting into trouble, my thoughts turn to Havoc and the dozens of other imprinted animals that find their way to the Care Center each year. Hardly a week goes by where the Wildlife Care Center does not receive a phone call or visit from someone looking to rid themselves of a wild animal that they mistakenly tried to make into a pet. The animals change, but the story is the same: the wild animal that at first seemed so fun and interesting has now grown to be large, loud, aggressive, destructive, expensive...UNWANTED. Sadly, imprinting is not reversible and the conventional wisdom is that regardless of health, those animals are doomed to a life in captivity. We prepared to house the crow on a permanent basis and gave him a name.

Spend a few minutes alone with Havoc and you will quickly realize both why someone took him in as a pet and also why they once again set him free. With a penchant for blondes, baths, mice and mealworms, Havoc quickly endeared himself to the Care Center. He would greet us each morning by springing up and down in his cage like some manic, feathered pogo stick. Failure to satiate his ever-changing desires quickly resulted in what only can be described as a vindictive temper-tantrum - a full-fledged squawking, shrieking, food flying, ankle-pecking crow freak-out. His tastes were expensive, too - one day I turned to find him removing the prism from our $500 opthalmescope.

Wild animals raised in captivity are caught in a double bind. Unlike domestic animals that have had their wilder instincts bred out of them over the course of thousands of years, wild animals will usually begin to show signs of aggressiveness and territoriality once they reach sexual maturity. They present unique caging and health problems that even well-funded institutions like zoos and aquariums have trouble accommodating. Many fail to adapt to life in a cage and begin to exhibit neurotic tendencies. It is under these circumstances that folks turn to the Care Center. More often than not when we ask what they would have us do with these animals, they suggest that we "take them out in the middle of nowhere, you know...far away from people...way out in the middle of nowhere."

It soon became clear that Havoc's affection for humans was only surpassed by his hatred of containment, a hatred that extended not just to his cage but to the very walls of the building. He escaped several times but the temptation to simply let him "keep going" was tempered by his misadventures in the Audubon Sanctuary. One time we found him down by Balch Creek. The creek was running high and muddy from winter rains and perched in the middle on a barely exposed rock was Havoc. Upon seeing us, he immediately leapt off the rock and made like some sort of mutant dipper, dunking himself completely below the surface and then reappearing to preen and make sure that we were still there watching. It was about the time that we were about to leave him to his freedom that a particularly large swell in the creek caught him off-guard. The sight of the distraught crow tumbling beak-over-talon down the creek, surfacing occasionally to gurgle out a forlorn shriek, was matched in absurdity only by the foolish human who dove in after him and emerged on the opposite bankÑmuddy and drenched, with the ungrateful biting crow firmly in hand.

As time went on and Havoc became less entertained by the antics of his captors, his unhappiness became increasingly apparent. In a way, Havoc was better off than many of the imprinted animals that we see. Had he been a species with a higher potential to injure a human being, a Red-tailed Hawk or a raccoon for example, releasing him back to the wild in an imprinted state would not have been an option. For this confused but relatively harmless crow, caught between two worlds, the question was simply one of morality. Was it kinder to trade the relative safety of captivity for the happiness of freedom in a wild that he was ill prepared to survive?

In the end, we chose to give Havoc his freedom. A volunteer with a large tract of rural land agreed to release him on her property. A technique known as "hacking," more commonly employed with captive raised falcons, was used to give him the best chance possible.

Among Havoc's neighbors in the "middle of nowhere" were several Great Horned Owls, duck hunters, and a man who shot pigeons because they pooped in his barn. There were creeks for him to drown in and cars to run him over. He also had a couple of birdloving humans to keep an eye on him and explain to the neighbors why a strange barking crow might decide to grace their garden party and to beg forgiveness for him when he pushed their azaleas off the porch. One day Havoc was sighted keeping company with other crows. When the flock left to roost, Havoc was left behind, apparently absorbed in watching a man fly his model airplane in the field below. Over the course of the next several days Havoc was seen intermittently among the flock. The last known Havoc sighting was at a local school. A man working in the school basement turned to find Havoc barking at him from the window well. That was just around sunset. The next morning the flock had moved on and Havoc was nowhere to be found.