Gulf Times, Qatar
September 22, 2013 Sunday
Using falcons to scare off fruit-eating birds
Vahe Alaverdian feeds one of his raptors after flying the bird over a
vineyard in Los Alamos, California. Alaverdian uses the birds to
control nuisance birds which cause damage to crops. By David Pierson
To keep pesky birds away from his blueberries, veteran farmer Mark
Flamm has blared recordings of avian distress calls, shot noisy “bird
bangers” from a pistol and ordered an employee to shake a
gravel-filled bottle at the sky.
He even went old-school and planted a scarecrow.
“That didn’t work,” said Flamm, 58, who once lost a fifth of his
berries to his feathered foe despite the efforts, “though I got a
picture of a bird sitting on the scarecrow.” That’s when he called in
the falcons.
Starting three years ago, the central Washington state grower hired
Vahe Alaverdian of Falcon Force ( ), a master
falconer based in La Crescenta, California, to drive out the flocks of
sparrows and starlings that were fattened off Flamm’s fields.
Using a hunting technique that some think dates back to the Bronze
Age, Alaverdian prompted his raptors to launch into a series of
high-speed dives, called “stooping,” meant to mimic the capture of
winged prey. The maneuvers – not unlike an aeronautical war dance –
trigger an innate panic attack in the fruit-munching birds, who are
either paralyzed with fear or flee for new surroundings.
The falcons are trained to scare, not snack on, their targets.
“It’s amazing. Suddenly all the other birds go quiet because they know
they could be eaten,” said Flamm, who has seen his crop loss from
birds dwindle to around 3 percent.
In the age-old face-off between farmer and bird, falconry has
presented a relatively new way to tip the scales in man’s favour.
It’s an ancient twist to modern farming, which has embraced technology
to resist disease, conserve water and conjure a smorgasbord of
expensive hybrid fruit. Yet when it comes to marauding birds, growers
have few solutions short of ringing the skies with shotgun blasts.
“There’s not much we can do,” said Joe MacIlvaine, president of
Paramount Farming Co. in Bakersfield, California, the world’s largest
grower and processor of almonds and pistachios. “You can’t shoot them,
and you can’t poison them, which aren’t great ideas anyway.” One
Ventura County strawberry farmer’s imperfect answer is riding his
bicycle on his farm and sounding its bell. Others use timed propane
canons and firecrackers that can make a tranquil country morning sound
like the Battle of Waterloo.
“I give one of my workers a pan and a hammer, and he just pounds away
to scare the birds,” said John Tenerelli, a stone-fruit farmer in
Littlerock, near Palmdale, California.
Alex Weiser, a specialty fruit and vegetable grower in Kern and San
Bernardino counties, has an employee drive up and down his fields
shooing away the birds like a come-to-life scarecrow.
Recently, he tried specially manufactured inflatable yellow balloons
with reflective silver patches he calls the “evil eye.” Hung on the
end of a branch, the orbs are meant to spook the burglars in
midflight.
Despite all that, some of his best results come from firing a flare
gun in the general direction of the airborne offenders.
“Not too popular with the neighbours,” Weiser said.
Bird damage is often overshadowed by weather and water as a farmer’s
chief concerns. But avian pests are a formidable challenge, raising
the risk of contamination and costing growers hundreds of millions a
year in damaged crop.
Recent research by the US Department of Agriculture estimates that
birds peck $49 million away from California’s wine-grape industry each
harvest, $12.3 million from the state’s sweet-cherry growers and $2.6
million from blueberry farms.
In Washington, bird damage cost growers of Honeycrisp apples $26.7
million, blueberries $4.6 million and sweet cherries $31.9 million.
Birds, like humans, prefer sugary fruit; it’s one reason tart cherries
in Washington suffered only $1.8 million in losses.
“Birds are a serious problem because they tend to like the crops that
are expensive,” said Stephanie Shwiff, one of the study’s authors and
a researcher at the USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center in Fort
Collins, Colo.
With a modest investment in bird abatement, farmers can protect more
of their profits, Shwiff said.
The problem is choosing the right method. Putting a net over the
entire bush makes sense for small farms. But at around $400 an acre,
it could set a larger grower back $400,000.
Flash tape, whose shiny surface wards off the birds, speckles most of
California’s wine vineyards, but even that loses its luster once birds
realise it poses no threat.
“Anything that doesn’t change day to day, the birds will get used to
it,” said Alaverdian, the falconer.
A killing machine like a peregrine falcon will grab the attention of
your run-of-the-mill finch or crow.
Alaverdian demonstrated how on a recent summer morning at a 1,000-acre
commercial vineyard in Los Alamos, about a 45-minute drive northwest
from Santa Barbara.
Patrolling the hilly property in his dusty white SUV, Alaverdian
spotted about two dozen magpies roosting on a nearby cluster of oak
trees. Although posing no danger to the grapes below, the presence of
black and white birds risked attracting the most prolific plunderers –
starlings.
Alaverdian released Genghis, one of four falcons perched patiently in
the back of his car strapped with radio transmitters just in case they
fly out of sight. The four-year-old peregrine circled over the
chardonnay and pinot grigio grapes, gained altitude and then swooped
with astonishing force toward his handler.
Genghis was lured by pigeon feathers tethered to the end of a rope
that Alaverdian twirled with precision. Each time the falcon got
close, Alaverdian pulled back the lure.
“This whole process is devastating from the prey’s point of view,”
said Alaverdian, 39, who repeated the performance several times until
the magpies vanished over a hill. Genghis was rewarded with a bloody
pigeon carcass pulled out of a Ziploc bag in the SUV cup holder.
The constant pressure encourages unwanted birds to seek their meals
elsewhere, sometimes to the detriment of neighbours. Alaverdian was
once cursed out by a vineyard manager next door. He took it as another
sign his falcons were hitting their stride. In the five years he’s
worked at the vineyard, netting has decreased from 95 percent to 5
percent.
That makes Alaverdian’s $700 day rate a bargain by comparison, though
it might take weeks or even months to take care of the problem.
Though effective, there aren’t enough certified master falconers like
Alaverdian to expand beyond a niche market in the nation’s $15 billion
fruit industry.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service said falconry is growing in
popularity. Traditionally a blood sport for the rich, it has found a
second life in the world of bird abatement. E & J Gallo Winery has
been using falcons for eight years in Sonoma County. Kendall Jackson
Winery has been doing it just as long in Monterey and Sonoma counties.
The birds are also employed at airports, landfills and beaches.
Still, not just anyone can pick up the craft. The life of a falconer
can be gruelling.
Alaverdian, whose Armenian family fled war-torn Iran in the 1980s,
said the job requires a comfort with ruggedness and solitude. He
spends months without a break on a single vineyard or farm.
He hasn’t bought commercial meat in 14 years. He eats salmon, trout,
elk and deer he catches in the wild. So engrossed with his work, he
can’t help but flinch when he sees a flock of birds even when he’s
driving back to his motel.
“When I was in Washington, I was asked why I didn’t go to church,”
said Alaverdian, who sports a perpetual five o’clock shadow and an
intensity on par with his prized predators. “I said, ‘Unless the
starlings go to church too, I’m not going either.'”- Los Angeles
Times/MCT
From: A. Papazian
http://falconforce.com