At Hardshell Labs, it is our understanding of avian motivation that is at the heart of our approaches to protecting crops, preventing the problems of disease vectoring and food stock depredation at dairies, and assisting landfills & composting facilities to prevent scavenging birds from exploiting their sites . Different birds respond to different cues and make different decisions, but in all cases, the goal is to tilt the bird’s cost-benefit analysis, convincing them that staying where we don’t want them is more trouble than it is worth.
The key to commercial viability is to find devices that are effective in repelling birds and can do it inexpensively. We apply commonly available devices and modify them with bird senses in mind. So far, our experiments with lasers, aerial drones and ground rovers all show great promise in annoying birds so they go away. Our hazing work, fully approved by the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Office, is yielding detailed knowledge of what tools work with which species in which circumstances, and represents by far the most humane approach to avian deterrence in direct comparison with the most widely used hazing method — shotgunning.
Ravens Foraging in Pistachio Orchard
Pigeons Hazed into Flight at Dairy
