When Tata, the worlds oldest known living crow was born in 1947, Saturn was in the same position in the Zodiac that it is now. By the time he recently died, at the age of 59, the planet had made, in fact, two trips around the sun. And, when he died, Tata the crow was older than most baby boomers, the generation of Americans who began in 1946.
He had fallen from his tree, as a young crow, and was found by a tender hearted person there on the ground at the Long Island Cemetary. He was cared for by the Manetta family until 2001 when, at the age of 54, due to their own declining health, he was handed over to the care of Kristine Flones, a wildlife rehabilitator in Woodstock New York, in the hamlet of Bearsville. By that time, Tata was blind from cataracts.
According to Kevin McGowan, an ornithologist at Cornell University who has studied crows for more than 20 years, the oldest crow that he has proof of is one that he has tracked for fifteen years, though he has heard claims of one that had lived to be 29 or 30.
Still, according to McGowan, the age of Tata is certainly understandable given his relatively easy lifestyle, particularly the lack of predators, communicable diseases, and the relative security from fatal accidents.
The last few years of his life, according to Flones, Tata would in the spring call out loudly to the crows outside, befinning at five a.m. Sometimes he would be quite loud.
Although I don't know if it's true, I have heard that by splitting a crows tonque will enable it to talk in much the same manner as a parrot. Also, if you point a broomstick at a flock of crows flying in formation, they will ignore you, as they can tell the difference btween a broomstick and a rifle, the sight of which will cause the leader to cry out a warning to others, whereupon they all will scatter.
It would be interesting to know what would have been the result if he had been released at the age of four, perhaps. Would he have returned to what would have been the relative comfort of his adopted home, or wouldhe have elected eventually to stay in the wild? What if he could have been mated with a female crow? Coul they have been bred, and eventually produced a breed of tame crows? I've often wondered about this as regards to owls.
Whatever, I just thought this was a nice little story, though kind of sad. And when you think about it, tatas passing might even be seen as a symbolic allegory of the baby boomers whose arrival he accompanied. The coming passing of a bunch of 0ld crows who started out wild and free, and ended up caged, and all too tamed, yet calling out impotently to their successors in hopes of what can never be.
