The Town of Wadena plans to authorize staff to shoot nuisance crows and magpies.

“They are a huge issue. They are not just noisy, but they will swoop down at people and they’re pretty smart,” administrator Ferne Hebig said.

One resident reports he has a dozen birds that love the spruce tree in his backyard and cause a racket, she said.

The move to have staff take up arms against the Corvidae family comes after Wadena’s former pest control officer left the post.

“We do have staff who have a couple BB guns, so they are going to be authorized to do that. We just have to get all the certification copied and on file and sent to the RCMP,” Hebig said.

Hebig herself lives in Watson and has to close her bedroom window at 4 a.m. because of the noise the birds make.

“I don’t know if it’s just something in our general region but we do have those issues.”