Dad who befriended a crow fears he may have died — after getting hooked on cigarettes

A FAMILY who befriended a crow fear he may have croaked — after getting hooked on cigarettes.

The bird became infatuated with Pete Catt, 37, after getting a taste for his Amber Leaf tobacco.

It would even nab ciggies from out of his mouth and bring him old fag butts.

The dad of two named the thieving crow Craig and looked after it for two months during daily garden visits.

Pete said: “It first landed on my back as I was digging in the garden and kept getting under the shovel.

“From then on, it constantly followed me around, never leaving me alone.

“One day I rolled a cigarette and it nicked it. I offered it a light and it appeared to nod its head.

“After that, if I stepped out the back to smoke it would swoop down to join me and try to get the cigarette.”

The bird also used to perch on Pete’s daughter Phoebe, seven, and son Austin, five, and let them feed him.

Pete, of Bexhill, East Sussex, has not seen Craig since October.

He said: “We don’t know what happened, but maybe it was the cigarettes which did it.”

Pete has turned the more than 6,000 pictures he took of the crow into a collection of NFT artwork and even made him his own Twitter account called @CryptoCraig.

@CryptoCraig

Pete has used photos he took of Craig to create Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)[/caption]

@CryptoCraig

Pete took thousands of pictures of Craig to make into digital artwork[/caption]