Alaska Costco shoppers say crows steal their groceries

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Some Alaska Costco shoppers said they stole their groceries from the crows in the store parking lot.

Matt Lewallen said he was packing his groceries in his car in the parking lot of an Anchorage Costco when the crows rushed to steal a short rib from his cart, Anchorage Daily News reported Friday.

“I literally took ten steps and turned around, two crows came down and immediately grabbed one from the package, ripped it off and took me out on the flight,” Lewallen said.

Lewallen said the piece of meat was about 10 by 18 inches in diameter (a sizable meal for a sizable bird).

“They know what they are doing; it’s not the first time, “Lewallen said.” They’re very fat, so I think they have a whole system in them. “

And when he got home, he realized that one of the crows had thrown another rib but didn’t steal it.

“I cut that meat and started marinating it and my wife said,‘ It’s dirty, we should return it, ’” Lewallen said. “Actually, Costco recovered it even after I started marinating. them and gave us a full refund “

Other sightings of crow thieves have appeared on social media.

“My parents were worried about their business after a store and they came home with one less steak!” Kimberly Waller wrote on Facebook. “The bird snatched it right from the package in the parking lot.”

Ancorage resident Tamara Josey responded to Waller’s message and referred to crows as “calculators.” She said the crows flew her in an attempt to steal her groceries.

“I had two crows, one that was in the car next to me and kept screaming really loud,” Josey said. “I sat in the car and stared at myself, then jumped next to the bed of the truck on the other side and kept coming and going. The other crow was on the ground. He kept trying to pull – he had those little melons you have in your mesh bags – he tried to grab the net and take my melons out of the cart.

A crow began flying in a circle around Josey until he got them done.

“I was waiting for another chance to get the melons out of the cart, but they were never deterred,” he said. “They’ve been posted, waiting for the next opportunity to steal something from my cart.”

“They are very dedicated to their mission,” he added.

An Anchorage Costco manager declined to comment to the newspaper about raven thieves.

The Anchorage Audubon Society counts the crow population each December. The group reported 923 common crows in 2018, 621 in 2019 and 750 birds in 2020.

Rick Sinnott, a former wildlife biologist with the State Department of Fish and Game, said hundreds of crows fly to Anchorage in the winter to eat. After winter turns to spring, most crows leave, Sinnott said.

Before doing so, the crows stick together to pluck various meats, fruits and vegetables.

“For years, decades, they’ve watched people in grocery store parking lots with all this food,” Sinnott said. “They know what a piece of fruit is in a grocery cart because they’ve seen it on the ground or seen it in a trash can.”