Plant Services.com
By Paul Studebaker,
CRMP, editor in chief February 2005
Birds can often be a nuisance to industrial
facilities, but read about how one company was able to find a natural way to
convince these pests they'd rather roost elsewhere.
There’s more than one
way to urge nuisance birds to hie themselves (and their ever-present
droppings) away from industrial facilities. “We use falconry-trained raptors --
falcons, eagle-owls and hawks -- to trigger their natural, genetically coded,
predator-prey fear instinct,” says Jeffrey Diaz, director of Ronin Air Falconry
Service (RAFS, www.roninair.com). “This hunter-hunted instinct is inherent in
all birds, wild or domestic.”
In December 2003, Sunoco’s Frankford, Pa., refinery contracted with RAFS to
abate some 5,000 to 6,000 starlings that had been a problem every winter for
decades. “We drove in from the West Coast during the blizzard in the last week
of January 2004,” Diaz says. “We knew the starlings would have to seek a new
shelter or freeze, which accelerated our project time.” In two weeks, the
flocks were completely abated for the year. “Sunoco was impressed and sent us
to a much larger refinery in Haverhill, Ohio, that was plagued with more than
15,000 starlings,” Diaz says. “This clear-out took three weeks and was also
very successful.”
RAFS thinks the relocated starlings teach their offspring that the project site
is dangerously life-threatening for the following winter’s roost. Eventually,
entire generations learn to respect that fear. They also learn that their new
winter roost is a sanctuary.
European starlings only live three to four years, so RAFS predicted that about
half of the starling population would attempt to return the following winter.
The next year at Frankford, less than 2,000 starlings returned, requiring a
one-week RAF visit. About 5,000 to 6,000 birds returned to Haverhill, and due
to the large area, that project took two weeks.
“At both refineries, far less than half attempted to return,” Diaz says. “This
time, we flew with our squadron -- two falcons, two eagle-owls and one hawk --
in dog crates.”
The falconers clear all kinds of industrial, commercial and military
sites, including warehouses and airports. “Upon initial survey, I develop a
strategy that best applies the squadron to the individual environment,” Diaz
says. The program has been applied successfully to igeons, starlings, crows,
grackles, cowbirds, blackbirds, seagulls, cormorants, Canadian geese, English
sparrows, horned larks, lennets and feral parrots.