From the Bellingham Herald,
March 04, 2008
Lynden, Washington: Keeping swarms of starlings away from ripening
blueberries is hard work.
That was the common theme Monday as a variety of experts gathered at the Lynden
Library to share information on a wide range of starlingcontrol techniques,
ranging from live and captive predator birds to balloons, kites, traps, poisons
and propane cannons.
The meeting was organized
by a new organization of berry growers’ neighbors called Creative Scarecrows.
Members of that group hope to promote alternatives to the cannons, which can
make for a nervewracking and noisy spring and summer around the berry fields.
“I hate the propane cannons,” said group organizer Lisa Neulicht, who has lived
in her north county home for 28 years. “They ruin my summer every summer.”
Neulicht said the cannon blasts disturb more people each year as more acres are
planted in blueberries, a crop that is enjoying a boom locally. Farmers see
profits slipping away when starlings — a nonnative species introduced from
Europe at the end of the 19th century — swarm over their fields by the
thousands. Henry Bierlink, public policy director for the Farm Friends
agriculture group, said local damage from starlings has been estimated at
$700,000 a year.
Creative Scarecrows member Jeff Littlejohn told the gathering how he worked
with his neighbor, berry grower Orinder Singh, to keep cannon usage to a
minimum last season.
At Littlejohn’s urging, Singh said he used bright helium balloons called
helikites, as well as kites shaped like birds of prey. Both devices soar and
dive on gusts of wind, helping
to scare away birds. “It works,” Singh said.
But both Singh and Littlejohn agreed that it isn’t enough to string up a few
kites and forget them. The birds are smart enough to get used to the devices
and go back to gulping berries. The kites must be regularly moved around to
keep the birds guessing.
But thanks to the kites, Littlejohn said Singh used his cannon for just three
hours a day over a four-day period during the height of the season — a level of
noise that he found tolerable.
“There was great rejoicing in my house,” Littlejohn said.
Jim Tigan, owner of a California firm called Tactical Avian Predators, warned
the group that starlings are too smart to be deterred by any one tactic. Tigan
said his company does starling control work in California vineyards using live
falcons as well as dogs, traps and balloons.
Propane cannons have been mostly phased out in the vineyards, Tigan said,
partly because of noise complaints and partly because birds soon learn they are
harmless. In fact, he said, some birds seemed to have learned to follow the
cannon blasts to the ripe fruit.
But he also expressed skepticism about reliance on kites
and balloons. If all local growers followed Singh’s example
and installed those devices in their berry fields, Tigan suggested they would
likely lose their effectiveness.
“These birds can habituate to anything,” Tigan said. “That’s why these birds
have done so well.”
Tigan said one of his falcon handlers with three birds can keep starlings away
from about 120 acres. That service doesn’t come cheap, he said, although he did
not mention a price. He said it might be a good option for the largest growers,
or a number of smaller growers concentrated in one area.
Katherine Hartline,
a researcher with Trinity Western University in British Columbia, said she is
working with local researchers
on a project to increase the population of wild American kestrels in Whatcom
County berrygrowing areas. Orphaned birds from Eastern Washington are being
raised to adulthood for eventual release in this area, and nest boxes will be
installed to encourage them to start families. Increasing the kestrel
population in this way has proved to pay off for farmers in other areas of the
country.
Hartline said Whatcom County’s kestrel population
has been diminished by development that destroys natural nesting areas.
Matt Cleland, regional director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
wildlife service, supervises a trapping and poisoning program that has killed
starlings by the hundreds of thousands in Whatcom County since it began more
than 10 years ago.
Cleland observed that scare tactics don’t get at the root of things.
“You’re just moving the problem,” Cleland said. “You’re not reducing the
problem.”
