cover story Silent scare tactic
Falconer Martina Kubssova, shown here playing a ‘game’ that encourages the falcon to attack a lure, has come from Slovakia to work with Falcon Pest Control.
TAMARA LEIGH
Falcons proving their worth as an alternative to using noisy devices to protect crops frompest birds.
By Tamara Leigh T
hey work silently above the fields, streaks of feather and claw striking suddenly fromthe
sky, scattering the starlings that have gathered to feed. It’s primal, even poetic, punctuated only by the sound of flapping wings. In an environment of increasing
opposition to the use of noise devices to control European starlings in blueberry fields, growers are using falcons to protect their crop without raising the ire of neighbours. Jacek Strek runs Falcon Pest
Control Inc., based in PittMeadows. He specializes in deterring pest birds like starlings using trained falcons or hawks. During berry season, he employs 20 falconers fromaround the world to fly 50 birds in the Fraser and Okanagan Valleys.His company is the largest of its kind in Canada, and possibly North America. “If you have falcons, you don’t need to use anything else. Cannons don’t
really work. All those vocal devices only work for a couple of weeks, then it’s useless,” say Strek. “With the falcons it’s quiet, it’s aesthetic, there’s no noise, and even if you have neighbours, they love it.” Falconry works by presenting a
physical threat to starlings in the area. While it is rare that a falcon actually kills a starling, the persistent presence of falcons hunting in the fields will stop the birds fromeating the crop, and eventuallymove the entire flock out of the area. “In order to break the starlings
resistance to leave the field you need to bring a real threat,” says Strek. “If you use a cannon, you should have hunters with a shotgun to kill the birds so when they hear the cannon they think the hunters are coming. But if there’s only the cannon, the noise is doing nothing.” “People don’t like cannons and they
simply aren’t working. It’s the same with the devices thatmake a sound like a bird getting killed – they work in the beginning but then nothing,” he adds. Nets are effective, but they also can
be expensive and require maintenance. According to Strek, a single falcon and falconer can keep starlings off a field up to 100 acres at a comparable price and without the additional costs of upkeep and repairs. Currently, Strek has birds flying in
fields ranging from20-100 acres. It can take two to three weeks with a
falcon to convince starlings tomove off of a field where they have been established. If the threat disappears, then the starlings will return, so it is important tomaintain a falcon presence in the area even once the starlings have gone. “It’s a brain game. Starlings are
incredibly well organized. They are clever and will play tricks and games,” explains Strek. “We limit their ability tomove to a certain place and keep themfromthe food source. The first year is always hard on a new farm, but by the second year the birds will usually find another place to feed.” For the falcons, working the fields is
a game. The falconer works the bird with a decoy on a lure that they whip through the air. The falcon will circle the field and then swoop down to attack the lure. “The birds perceive it perfectly and
they know what it is, but they love it. They cannot really resist it. There is no meat attached to it, they simply love the game,” says Strek. “The falconers on the farmin pest
control situations are constantly doing this exercise, though for the starlings it looks like the falcon is killing something. All they see is the falcon attacking and swooping.” One of the biggest challenges
running a falconry business is finding British Columbia Berry Grower • Fall 2013
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