ND company testing bird repellent at airports
WEST FARGO, N.D. — A West Fargo company that’s marketing an ecologically friendly repellent designed to keep blackbirds away from sunflower fields is trying to find out if its product can help limit bird strikes to airplanes.
An experiment earlier this summer at a regional airport in northeastern North Dakota showed the repellent, known as Flock Buster, drove away geese temporarily from a nearby lagoon, said John Nord, director of the Devils Lake airport.
“We can move them,” Nord said. “We would spray one cell area, then sure enough they would walk all their little ones down to the next cell that was not sprayed.”
Two problems turned up, Nord said. The study was conducted after nesting, when the geese were hunkered down and stubborn about leaving for good. And the rain appeared to wash away some of the repellent.
“I would like to try it again next spring, prior to the nesting season,” Nord said of the repellent, manufactured by West Fargo-based Skeet-r-Gone. “Once the birds have their nest and everything, the parenting takes over everything else.”
Aviation officials have increasingly focused on bird strikes after a US Airways jet was forced to land in the Hudson River earlier this year after both of its engines were knocked out by Canada geese. The Canada geese population has exploded in North America in the past few years, said Tony Molinaro, regional Federal Aviation Administration spokesman in Chicago.
“They are big birds that are also flocking birds,” he said. “That causes problems.”
The FAA’s database of wildlife strikes lists more than 89,000 collisions between aircraft and birds or other animals since 1990 that have left 11 people dead. Airplane collisions with birds have nearly doubled at 13 major U.S. airports in that time.
Molinaro said it’s impossible to eliminate all of them, and any success likely would depend on a variety of techniques. Researchers have looked into air cannons, dogs, falcons, laser lights, radar and sonar, among other things.
“We’re looking for good data and good research, no matter where it comes from,” said Molinaro. “We try to help that along wherever we can.” The FAA spends up to $3 million a year on wildlife research, he said.
Flock Buster’s primary purpose is keeping blackbirds away from sunflower fields. The non-toxic, viscous liquid is sprayed on crops and has four different tastes and three smells demonstrated to be unpleasant to the birds, said Barb Howard, general manager for Skeet-r-Gone.
It costs $10 an acre for the first application and $5 an acre for the second, she said.
Blackbirds are big nuisances for sunflower growers. “They eat your profit is what they do,” said Terry Boll, spokesman for Red River Commodities, a grower based in Fargo. “Farmers would really like to see a body count, but you can’t go out and kill a couple of million birds. This stuff doesn’t harm them.”
As for whether Flock Buster can help manage wildlife strikes on aircraft, Skeet-r-Gone owner Tom Kenville plans to test the repellent — originally released under the name Geese Police — at the Fargo airport.
“The miracle on the Hudson is driving the wagon,” said Kenville, a longtime pilot himself.
Shawn Dobberstein, the Fargo airport director, said he’s hoping Flock Buster can help shoo away gulls in the area.
“We’re willing to give it a try and see what happens,” Dobberstein said. “There’s definitely some potential.”
Airports aren’t the only places looking to get rid of geese. Dean Ellingson, general manager of Forrest Hills Golf Course near Detroit Lakes, Minn., said the course had its biggest ever hatch of geese this year and golfers are tired of tiptoeing around certain holes.
“If they can figure that out,” he said of Flock Buster’s manufacturer, “I will do business with them immediately.”
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