'A very sassy individual:' Orphaned crow being trained at Atlantic Veterinary College

Thousands of crows makethemselves at home here on P.E.I. but one crow in particular has taken it to another level.

Croweena, an eight month old crow, lives at the Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) in Charlottetown after being brought in as an orphaned bird last May.

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Croweena has since imprinted on the staff and students at the AVC.

"It happens in the early development of the animal. It's a facial thing really. They look at you and think 'that's my species, that's where I belong to, that's where I can get food from,'" said Fiep de Bie, Croweena's handler and a wildlife technician at the AVC.

"She takes to people," de Bie said.

The initial plan was to prepare Croweenaso that she could be returned to the wild but de Bie saidfor now, it's too dangerous.

"We tried to release her but she was rejected by other crows. Other crows were quite mean to her," said de Bie. "That happens in the crow world. If you do not belong or you behave differently, they can attack you or mob you."

Instead, Croweenais being trained by students and teachers at the AVC.

'We had to earn her trust'

Ali Frye,a third year veterinary student at the college, is one of several students working with the resident crow.

Even though Croweena feels comfortable around humans, she still needs some time to warm up to individuals, said Frye.

"We had to earn her trust and from there, moving to being able to clicker train her," she said.

Clicker training is a technique that uses clicking sounds to indicate positive reinforcement.

"When she does something we like, we click, and she knows she's going to get a mealworm," said Mitchell Carr, another third year vet student working with Croweena.

Carr said Croweena has been fairly receptive to the training, but not without some challenges.

'A very sassy individual'

"Croweena is a very sassy individual and in any given day, she could be really comfortable with the situation or completely 'I'm not having anything to do with what's going on,'" said Carr.

Croweena'shandlers saidthe goal is to eventually have Croweena become as comfortable as possible around students so that she canbe used as a teaching aid, and when she's not in the classroom, she canfoster other crows.

"Crows are extremely social, and they don't do so well on their own, so we would place [other crows] with her and they would perk up and feel better," said de Bie.

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