Review of effectiveness of visual and auditory bird scaring techniques in agriculture

Abstract

Pests cause huge damage that leads to high losses in crops and implicitly to lower yields in the agricultural sector. Of these, birds are also harmful in terms of crop damage, especially for high value crops (vineyards, trees, cereals, vegetables). In the pre-harvest period, birds (starlings, blackbirds, pigeons, sparrows, sowing crows) can be able to destroy about 60-70% of the crop in a very short time. Complete crop loss is possible if no deterring mechanisms are used. Farmers want to find an easy and cost-effective way to keep birds away from their crops because uncontrolled birds can completely destroy the whole crop. Finding a balance is difficult, so even modern equipment and great efforts will not prevent all the damage caused by bird attack, some of these devices may cause disturbing environments for people if they are not properly managed. However, the right tools and good management can reduce the attack of birds and conserve more crops. Currently, large research is oriented toward the development of agricultural robots as tools in ecological research, but with extraordinary potential for biodiversity sampling, studies of population dynamics and ecosystem functioning, experimental biology and behavioral studies. Recently, drones have become increasingly accessible, and this currently leads to their widespread use for wildlife observation, the study of bird behavior. At present, there is no bird control technique that provides maximum protection for crops, so it is recommended to use a combination of scaring methods at the same time, namely: acoustics (propane cannons, pyrotechnic cartridges, speakers, etc.), visually (balloons, mirrors, reflective tapes, kites, lasers, drones, etc.) and physical (nets). In this context, this paper aims to identify the losses from different crops due to the attack of birds and proposes an integrated approach to effective visual and auditory removal techniques, such as to preserve the role of birds in the global balance of the environment.