Birds damage billions of dollars of resources every year in the United states. They pester waste management facilities, create fires around utility distribution lines and equipment, prey on desired and threatened species, damage agricultural crops, strike aircraft, create roost problems, and carry and transmit disease. Hardshell Labs, Inc. (HSL) produces inventions and innovations that provide resource protection services from birds. Its innovative technology creates transformative avian hazing and damage protection practices that will dramatically reduce critical asset losses in typically remote, conservation habitats and agricultural settings.
In 2022 the company was awarded a Phase I, Small Business Innovation Research Grant by the National Science Foundation, as well as the Theodore Roosevelt Genius Prize for “Promoting Nonlethal Human-Wildlife Conflict Management: Creating a No-Fly Zone for Birds” by Tim Shields and our Hardshell Labs team featuring Dr. Bill Boarman, and Ryan Boarman.
Hardshell Labs has developed field-tested, humane solutions to control bird damage to valued assets. The company has extensive field experience managing and preventing predation by ravens or crows of endangered species, such as the Desert Tortoise and Sage Grouse, and is exploring applications of its proven protection services in the areas of: wildfire mitigation, landfills, waste management, dairy operations, ecological habitat protection; as well as shielding other high value agricultural crops. Hardshell Labs specializes in understanding and developing novel processes and technologies for agricultural, commercial and conservation applications.
See how it's done
Orchard Story
Animated Explainer Video
• Do you understand, have you quantified the cost of your losses to ravens and crows? •
Research and
Development
Conservation
Services
Utility Pole Nest
Fire Prevention
Waste Management, Ag,
and Other Commercial
The Problems
Avian damage happens when birds:
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- Eat things we don’t want them to
- Inhabit places where we don’t want them
- Damage infrastructure
- Act as disease vectors
The Solutions
Hardshell Labs is working on three types of humane solutions to these problems:
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- Changing bird distribution by driving them from sensitive areas or those containing high value assets
- Reducing overall bird numbers
- Altering bird behavior, principally their dietary choices
Our Approach
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- Hardshell Labs’ biologists bring a deep understanding of bird behavior and the problems they cause to envision possible solutions.
- They work with our team of highly creative engineers to apply existing technology in novel combinations, resulting in new devices to address those problems.
- Field testing follows, to assess the effect of the devices and to refine their designs.
- Our business officers then develop commercialization strategies to bring these solutions to market.
- Explore the site for more detail on specific problems and the state of Hardshell’s solutions to them.