AUBURN, N.Y. (AP) – In a city where a massive flock of crows has pestered local residents for years, officials are now fighting back with a hazing program aimed at disrupting the birds’ sleeping habits and driving them into the countryside.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Fish and Wildlife Services and the state Department of Environmental Conservation started harassing the crows Monday and will continue through the week. Teams of scientists spread across Auburn, using hand-held lasers, pyrotechnics and amplified crow distress calls.

“They are beautiful creatures, and we don’t want to hurt them. We just want them out of our downtown,” said Mayor Timothy Lattimore. “We wish them well – just somewhere else.”

The invasion began about 15 years ago when more than 50,000 crows started wintering in this small upstate city 20 miles west of Syracuse – outnumbering the human population of 28,574. Residents complain the crows are a noisy nuisance that soil the city with feces and drive off other songbirds.

The birds settle in the city to sleep at night after spending the day foraging for food in the countryside.

Three years ago, local businessman Tom Lennox organized an informal crow hunt. The event has grown rapidly. Last year, the two-day contest in February attracted 208 hunters, some from as far away as Kentucky and Arizona. The hunters killed 1,061 birds.

Crow season runs from Sept. 1 to March 31, but crows can only be hunted Friday through Monday, a legal quirk that dates to the federal 1918 International Migratory Bird Act.

The hunt, though, has ruffled some feathers.

Some residents think Auburn’s bounty of birds is something to crow about and that the city should celebrate its avian neighbors with a festival or other promotion.

Before they started, the scientists came up with a crow count of 63,800 birds – give or take a few hundred. Auburn’s roost is unique compared to others in the state because the crows roost throughout the city rather than in one location, said Richard Chipman, New York director of USDA wildlife services.

Similar non-lethal hazing programs have been undertaken in Utica, Troy and Albany, which have roosts ranging in size from 6,000 to 25,000, he said.

Lattimore said because of the size of the Auburn roost, there is no guarantee the heckling methods will work. If they don’t, the city may have to consider more drastic steps, such as using a helicopter to herd them somewhere else, the mayor said.

The aim of the project is to break the large flock into smaller, more manageable flocks and drive them out of downtown into less populated areas, Chipman said. It is hoped the program will show a measurable difference by week’s end, but it is likely the hazing will have to be a yearly effort, he said.

In the past 20 years, crow populations have exploded in suburban areas around the country, causing officials to investigate new control and management methods.

On the Web:

Crow Busters: http://www.crowbusters.com

Cayuga County Crows Unlimited: http://cccrowsunlimited.com