Airstrike Birds on Berry Farms

Airstrike Birds on Berry Farms

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. Many blueberry and grape growers in our state have turned to a different solution for fighting a problem they see every growing season ... how to get rid of the birds that feast on their crop.

Brad Fegler of Airstrike Bird Control in Mount Vernon has developed a pretty effective, and mostly non-lethal, method ... falcons ...

BRAD FEGLER ... "And the way we do that is we have farmers that contract with us and then we have Falconers that work for us. And so a Falconer would be assigned to a particular farm or sometimes there's a cooperative effort between a couple of farmers or a couple of different farms. And then the Falconer, essentially, from about the time the blueberries are ripening until they're harvested, every day of the week, most daylight hours, we're out there all day, flying falcons and chasing the birds away."

Fegler says he helps northwest blueberry growers deal with some level of bird problems every year ...

BRAD FEGLER ... "It really varies farm to farm and sometimes some years are bigger bird years than others, but essentially every blueberry farmer experiences some degree of fruit loss due to birds. And so they need to measure the loss with the methods they use and falconry has proven to be very effective."

Fegler says he's been very successful helping growers who suffered great losses the year before, avoid most if not all bird damage the following year.

Airstrike Bird Control hires out for farming, landfills, resorts, and anywhere birds are either causing damage or, at the very least, a nuisance.

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