Crow Refuses To Leave The Man Who Saved His Life
Canuck, a crow who lives in Vancouver, Canada, got into a bit of trouble recently. His dad, Shawn Bergman, wasn't pleased by the bird's conduct.
"I'm not thrilled that he tampered with a crime scene, but what ... [can] you do?" Bergman told The Dodo. "He's a wild crow."
On Tuesday, police arrived at a crime scene where they were confronted by a man holding a knife. Shots were fired and the man was arrested.
The knife inevitably became evidence - but was picked up by Canuck when he swooped in and decided it would become his. An officer managed to chase the clever crow until he finally dropped the knife, CBC News reported.
But long before Canuck was meddling in police affairs, he was a hatchling who had fallen out of his nest as a baby. "He was found and raised by my landlord's son," Bergman wrote on Canuck's Facebook page. "He was no bigger than a tennis ball and was not able to fly due to his age. He more than likely would've died if he hadn't been taken in, in my opinion."
Canuck was cared for by the landlord's son until he was able to fly and survive on his own.
He was released in July 2015, but not before receiving a red band on his left foot that made him easily identifiable and signaled to others who came across him that he'd had human contact.
But even though Canuck was free to go, he never left the neighborhood, choosing instead to loiter in the yard of the building he knew as home.
"On approximately day three of his release we noticed that he was not around the house," Bergman told The Dodo. Bergman decided to go looking for the crow himself, to see if the bird was still within the parameters of the neighborhood.
"I ended up coming across him in an open grassy area looking very confused and scared," Bergman said. "As soon as he saw me, he ran up to me. I put up my arm and he flew up and landed on it."
"That was the first time I had ever walked through the neighborhood with a crow on my arm. Little did I realize it would be far from the last," Bergman said.
"Now it's an everyday thing," he said.
While Canuck is friendly - for the most part - toward other people, he shares a special bond with Bergman, whom he greets in the mornings and follows to his bus stop when he heads off to work.
As soon as Bergman steps off the bus each evening, Canuck is there to say "hello" after a long day.
Canuck celebrated his estimated first birthday on May 9.
Despite Canuck being used to humans, Bergman aims to keep the crow's experience as close to the wild as possible.
"I want him to experience life naturally," Bergman said.
Well, as naturally as a bird who's become a bit of a celebrity both locally and internationally can experience.
"He's very mischievous and a prolific thief, but he can also be quite comical," Bergman said. "He's not shy."
But no matter how far Canuck strays, he knows that he'll always have a partner in Bergman - the person who came for him just when he needed him most.
"Who knows, maybe he looked at that day [we met] as the day I rescued him from being lost," Bergman said.
Watch this video of Canuck "car surfing" with his dad, one of his favorite pastimes: