Read on Twitter
Cool story. Is it true? Parts of probably are, but the climax probably isn't. Let's break it down. https://twitter.com/clapifyoulikeme/status/1341417495144636416
First let's talk about what's true. It's true that crows can learn & remember specific people. They do this in both positive contexts, & negative contexts. So, if you take to feeding your local pair (assuming they're not otherwise persecuted) they'll learn & actively seek you out
Lots of people who feed crows self report receiving "gifts." These can be things like pieces of metal, animal bones, bits of plastic, wrappers, etc. The most infamous example of this is probably Gabi Mann. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026
Now, are these actually gifts, as in intentions of gratitude? The science jury is still out, but most crows biologists I know don't think so. Alternative explanations include that they just carry interesting things around, and so naturally leave them behind when they pick up food
or that it's a conditioned behavior. They did it once by accident and it was immediately rewarded with more food so now they do it all the time. But the truth is we don't know their intent. So IMO feel free to call them gifts.
On the other side of the coin, if you harm crows by throwing rocks at them, messing with their kids, picking up a dead one, destroying a nest, etc. they will also learn you. And they're not forgiving. An especially violent encounter may have you getting dive-bombed for decades.
Where the story goes awry in my expert opinion is in the assertion that these crows have gone beyond recognizing this person as a friendly feeder and taken up defending them from non-existant threats.
I say that because, AFAIK, in wild contexts, that's never ever happened. Also why would it? It's dangerous to attack (meaning in this case approach/dive bomb) a potential threat. Why would these birds take that risk without, well, CAWS?
Now, I should pause here for a sec to underscore that bonded, captive birds are a horse of a different color entirely. They will absolutely become aggressive towards people approaching their bonded person. Parrots can be like this too. That's not uncommon.
So no, I don't think that an army of wild crows is possible. BUT that doesn't mean this person's observations of them being aggressive towards their neighbor are therefore made up. There are other, more likely explanations. Let's discuss.
Top of the list is that their neighbor already has a bad reputation with the crows, maybe for one the reasons I listed above. That would be the mostly likely explanation for their behavior IMO.
Some crows also become aggressive *as a result of feeding*. Meaning if you feed crows, you might find that one of them takes to dive bombing you until you give it food. They don't often scold in this case.
So it's possible they are over-generalizing and asking for food from the wrong person. I doubt this scenario though because while crows do sometimes make mistakes in recognizing people, they don't tend to over-generalize feeders in the way that Canada jays or chickadees do.
Alternatively, while I have never seen or heard of this despite having talked to a great many dedicated crow feeder, I guess I shouldn't conclusively rule out that they might get defensive towards perceived competitors of their food.
Vetting this out would take a pretty tight study controlling for the familiarity of the people that approached you, their personal histories with the birds, their distance to the food, the amount of food, the birds' level of hunger etc. But it could be done.
Bottom line is that relationships with crows are awesome and I do encourage people to pursue friendly, food based relations with a limited number of birds (we're talking like an individual pair that gets 1 handful of food a day).
But I reject the notion that crows are inexplicably susceptible to the human fantasy that wild animal will come to our defense.This fantasy is ultimately rooted in our desire for power over both nature and each other and I reject it flatly.
Also, to answer the actual question of the post: there is in fact legal precedent for people being held finically accountable for the crows they feed damaging neighboring properties.
