Canuck, the bad-arse crow hero who likes knives, fire and crime, has reportedly gone missing.
The chaotic-good corvid gained notoriety in 2016 for tampering with a crime scene in Vancouver, British Columbia. A man allegedly set a car on fire and was threatening law enforcement with a knife. After the man was arrested, Canuck, who was reportedly observing the incident from the flaming car, snatched up the knife with his beak.
“A cop chased it for about 15 to 20 feet [5 to 6 metres], and then the crow dropped it and took off,” Vancouver Courier reporter Mike Howell told the CBC at the time. “In my 20-plus years reporting from crime scenes, I’ve never seen anything like that crow trying to take a knife.
By that point, Canuck already had a local following and his own social media presence. About five months before the notorious knife incident took place, the Facebook page “Canuck and I” uploaded a profile picture of Canuck wielding another knife in his beak, showing the bird had a penchant for blades long before his antics went viral.
Shawn Bergman, who manages the “Canuck and I” page to document his encounters with the bird, said that Canuck has been missing since August 30. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Bergman wrote that there is now a $US10,000 ($14,711) reward for Canuck’s safe return.
Canuck has an orange band on his left leg and a numbered metal band on his right leg, showing his recognition as a federally protected bird.
“I would like Canuck to come home soon. Cassiar misses him, I miss him, and so do thousands of other people,” Bergman told Gizmodo. “He is an inspiration to people everywhere and we all love him and want him to come home, where he belongs — with his mate Cassiar.”
In a short documentary about his relationship with Canuck, Bergman said that the bird was found and raised by his landlord’s son, and when Canuck was released into the wild, Bergman was present and Canuck flew to his arm.
“That’s how we met and started our friendship,” Bergman said in the film. “Typically I’m out of the house by 7 in the morning. Canuck usually lands on the railing right outside my door. He’ll follow me to the bus stop and generally wait with me at the bus stop, and I will spend every moment I can with him.”
One Canuck fan is already suggesting fowl play. The manager of the Facebook page “Canuck Crow Adventures,” who has previously accused Bergman of treating Canuck like a pet, speculated on Wednesday that Canuck may not be missing at all. Without any evidence to back this up, however, this armchair investigator could soon be eating crow.
Wherever Canuck is, we can only hope he has a knife and is located soon.