Quebec crow hunt draws controversy as Montreal SPCA denounces 'wildlife killing contests'

The Montreal SPCA says a weekend crow-hunting tournament near Quebec City has no place in the province.

The organization took to Facebook this week, alerting people about an event held by the hunting and fishing association of Pont-Rouge, located southwest of Quebec City.

Hunters have all day on Saturday, March 22 to kill as many crows as they can before a weigh-in to declare a winner.

In an emailed statement, the Montreal SPCA said it is opposed to recreational hunting activities that are aimed at entertainment and not sustenance.

"Wildlife killing contests that encourage the killing of wild animals and offer prizes for performance should be banned in Quebec," said Sophie Gaillard, director of animal advocacy, legal and government affairs, in an emailed statement.

The organization highlighted a crow's intelligence and encouraged people to voice their concerns to the Quebec Environment Ministry to ask them to ban such hunting contests.

Marc Renaud, president of the Quebec Federation of Hunters and Fishermen, said he's disappointed by the SPCA's reaction.

"They're there for animal cruelty but they're not there to manage hunting," said Renaud.

He says local farmers are "happy to see us" since crows are pests for some people and get into farmers' crops and fields.

"It's a totally legal and regulated activity … it's not animal cruelty," said Renaud.

He says there will be some hunters who decide to eat the crows and others might preserve the animal through taxidermy.

While he agrees the birds are very intelligent, he says that's not a valid argument to prevent hunting.

Should smarts be a factor in hunting ethics?

Louis Lefebvre, a biologist at McGill University, says the situation raises "a societal question."

"Do we want to protect dolphins because they're more intelligent than tuna?" he said. "Do we eat chickens because they're less intelligent than crows? Is that a kind of criterion we want to have as a society?"

He says crows are certainly "at the very top" in terms of intelligence.

"They find clever solutions to problems we give them. They use tools. They make tools," said Lefebvre.

"In terms of how many neurons they have in the equivalent of the cortex of their brains, they come second only to parrots."

But he says crows are not a threatened species and the planned hunt is not that different from others.

"There's a sport hunt for all sorts of animals. There's a sport hunt for deer. There's a sport hunt for geese, there's a sport hunt for ducks," said Lefebvre.

He said it's a question of being for or against hunting.