Black-billed Magpie - Relationship With Humans

Relationship With Humans

When Lewis and Clark first encountered magpies in 1804 in South Dakota, they reported the birds as being very bold, entering tents or taking food from the hand. Magpies formerly followed American bison herds (from which they gleaned ticks and other insects), as well as the bands of Plains Indians that hunted the bison so they could scavenge carcasses. When the bison herds were devastated in the 1870s, magpies switched to cattle, and by the 1960s they had also moved into the emerging towns and cities of the North American West. Today Black-billed Magpies remain relatively tame in areas where they are not persecuted. However, they become very wary in areas where they are often shot at or disturbed. Especially during the first half of the 20th century, Black-billed Magpies were considered detrimental to game-bird populations (they sometimes steal bird eggs) and domestic stock (they sometimes peck at sores on cattle), and were systematically trapped or shot. Bounties of one cent per egg or two cents per head were offered in many states. In Idaho the death toll eventually amounted to an estimated 150,000. In 1933, 1,033 magpies were shot in Washington’s Okanogan valley by two teams of bounty hunters. Many magpies also died from eating poison set out for coyotes and other predators.

If regularly disturbed at the nest, magpie pairs will eventually either move the eggs or abandon the clutch altogether, but in the first instance they will defend the nest aggressively. Interestingly, biologists who have climbed nest trees to measure magpie eggs have reported that the parents recognized them personally on subsequent days and started to mob them, overlooking other people in the vicinity.

Many suburban songbird lovers dislike magpies because of their reputation for stealing eggs, but studies have shown that eggs make up only a small proportion of what magpies feed on during the reproductive season. In England, the European Magpie also has a reputation for taking eggs, and yet when density of magpie populations increases, songbird density does not decrease; on the contrary, it increases too.