They gather in gangs in Rochester's Central Park, they hide in the shadows and caw at the moon. They bother tourists and cancer patients and downtown businesses. They poop on your car. Rochester has some unwelcome guests, as many as 20,000 to 30,000 crows that come in from surrounding cornfields at dusk and wreak havoc -- raucous thugs looking for trouble…The city has spent more than $8,000 in the past couple of months trying to persuade the crows to hit the hot-and-dusty. The Mayo Clinic has pitched in an untold amount of money because patients and their families have to negotiate sidewalks slick with crow droppings.

Star Tribune, by Jon Tevlin, 02/08/2012

Tags: crows, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Philanthropy, Rochester Central Park