Have you ever seen a raven steal groceries?
Apparently, in Alaska they’re terrorizing Costco customers and making off with their food.
via NYDN:
Marnie Jones and her husband are among the poetic birds’ recent victims, she told the outlet.
The pair arrived home from the store only to realize one of their filet mignon steaks, part of a four-pack, was in the wind.
The pack fell in the parking lot, but Jones’ husband was loading groceries and didn’t notice until it was too late.
“He said, ‘Oh my God, after I picked up that pack of steaks, I saw a raven in the parking lot with a steak in his mouth,’” said Jones.
Olani Saunoa has twice been through a similar ordeal, she told the outlet.
She lost “an entire package of short ribs” to a raven after leaving the store last winter, she told the outlet, recalling the bird was “like flying away with it.”
“I’ve been here my entire life, dealt with the ravens but never ever had this happen to me, ever,” she told ADN, noting she recently lost pork ribs to the birds.
“They know what they’re doing,” Matt Lewallen, who lost a single short rib to the birds, told the outlet. “They’re very fat so I think they’ve got a whole system there.”
Tamara Josey said a pair of the birds were tenacious in trying to get some melons she’d bought.
“They were never deterred,” she recounted to AND. “They just stayed posted, waiting for their next opportunity to steal something out of my cart.”
Josey feels the birds “are very dedicated to their mission.”
An increase in the city’s garbage over the years has only made it more enticing for ravens, who learn from fellow birds, Rick Sinnott, who formerly worked as an Anchorage-area wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told the outlet.
“Ravens do very well in this city, but they much prefer — I would guess if I was thinking like a raven — a package of short ribs from Costco to half of a hamburger bun from McDonald’s,” said Sinnott.
