Subject: Bird Solutions Wanted

From: greg kneeland <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 20:02:41 -0400

Hi,
Does anyone have any solutions to a incredible bird problem that we have
at our hatchery? We've tried netting, mesh fences, bird-eyes,scarecrows
and just about everything else. Fencing in the whole hatchery would be
ideal but isn't feasible.

[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked](brett rowley)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 13:00:34 GMT

>ideal but isn't feasible.

Greg,

Age old problem.  When I ran a 4000 acre catfish farm near the coast,
we had more birds than you could shake a stick at.  I never found an
ideal solution, but was able to address the problem.  I hired lots of
high scholl kids to ride 4 wheelers and hovercrafts around the ponds. 
I had a permit to kill some types of birds, you get the permit from the
USFWS.  During especially heavy bird times I added a helicopter to the
fleet.  I found that with constant harrasment, I could move the birds
off to other farms.  The problem is worst in the winter.  Huge flocks
of cormorants move in to the area.  They stay away from fish farms at
first because of harrassment around them.  Soon, however, they eat most
of the fish from ponds and lakes that are not patrolled and are forced
by hunger to risk harrasment in order to feed.  Increased patrols were
then required.  I found that a person and vehicle for every 200 acres
or so was necessary to keep from being wiped out.  The birds could eat
all the fish in a 15 acre pond in three days if not constantly run off.

The ultimate answer is to control pest bird species by reducing the
populations to an amount that can be supported by NATURAL food
supplies.  In particualr, the double crested cormorant needs to be
declared a pest and no longer protected until such time that they are
living in numbers that are not problematic.  I feel once this species
is in some kind of balance with the environment, the other species of
fish eating birds will alos have more natural food supplies and an
easier time of making it without having to hunt on fish farms.  

The species I got kill permits for were;

Double crested cormorant
Common egret
Common gulls and terns
Great Blue Heron

Species that were problematic but I had no kill permits for;

White pelican
Brown pelican
kingfisher
Louisiana Heron
Night heron
Green heron
Lesser blue heron
wood stork
Common loon

I guess the best thing was the hovercraft.  With a good operator, one
could go nearly anywhere in any weather.  They could fly over levees
and ponds in line with the birds and they made so much noise you could
here one for miles.  The birds were terrified of them.  I had four of
them and four kids to operate them.  It was something to watch them
remove a flock of pelicans, working in tandem and going over ponds and
ditches.  The drawbacks were these machines were not made for every day
work and were really difficult to keep running.  They had tempermental,
air cooled two stroke engines, kind of like a big weedeater, and just
as tempermental.  They required daily servicing of the engines, I
learned that Rotax engines were worth the extra money over Cayuna
engines, that they ran best on premium fuel and oil, and that the
engines must be cleaned every day.  The boat part had to have its
skirts checked and torn ones repalced daily.  Nobody could work on the
motors right, a real problem.  But they did work on the birds.

The other thing, the hovercraft we used had one engine, 1/3 of the
power went to lift, 2/3 to thrust.  This arrangement made for tricky
operating requiring lots of nerve and forethought.  I think if you
could have seperate engines for lift and thrust, the operation would be
much simpler.

Best of luck with the birds,

Brett Rowley
Fisheries Biologist
Great Lakes Sportfishing Resort and Koi Breeding Farm
West Columbia, Texas

http://home.cdsnet.net/~dearlix/index.html

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From: Deb Gaynor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 09:15:29 -0700

I am looking for ways to limit/remove the population of leeches in my 1/2 
acre swimming pond in northern Vermont.  The pond is 8 years old, clay 
bottom, 10 feet deep. This is the first year the leeches have showed up 
(black on top, red on the bottom, 3/4" to 3" long).  Leeches presumably 
hitchhiked on some of the numerous pond visitors (ducks, geese,...).  I 
recently stocked the pond with some large mouth bass and shiners as my 
first defense.  Any ideas?

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 11:03:15

In article <[email-masked]> greg kneeland <[email-masked]> writes:
>From: greg kneeland <[email-masked]>
>Subject: Bird Solutions Wanted
>Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 20:02:41 -0400

>[email-masked]

    There are automatic-firing gas guns, which can be set to go off
at random intervals, but I don't have a name of a dealer or manu-
facturer.

                                                   Bill E.

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From: [email-masked](brett rowley)
Date: 4 Sep 1996 23:54:42 GMT

>first defense.  Any ideas?

Leeches are susceptible to trichlorfon containing insecticides at 0.5
ppm active.  Usually requires more than one treatment every three or so
days.  A couple of brands are Dipterex, Masoton, Dylox.  None of these
should harm your fish, and in fact might remove other parasites they
have such as flukes and lice.  If I'm not mistaken, Dipterex is labeled
for aquatic mosquito control.

Brett