Meet Caprice, the hawk who works for the City of Burnaby [Video]

She’s majestic, alert, and sleek. 

She’s Caprice the Hawk and has a very important job at the City of Burnaby. 

Caprice — who is a Harris’s hawk — guards the Burnaby eco-centre, where recycling and compost are periodically dropped off throughout the week. 

The centre happens to be near a popular roosting spot, where thousands of crows from across Metro Vancouver gather every evening—and are naturally attracted to the compost. 

It’s Caprice’s job to keep these birds at bay. 

“We would be inundated with dive-bombing birds right now if we did not have the hawk here,” said Zac Der, an environmental services officer with the city. 

Caprice the Hawk guards the Burnaby eco centre from crows and gulls attracted by compost scraps. As Michelle Gomez reports, Caprice’s presence alone keeps the birds away.

Burnaby is not the first city to use birds to ward off birds: other cities, including Coquitlam, Toronto and Ottawa, have used birds of prey to guard landfills. 

Der said the …