
Growers Are Beaming Over the Success of Lasers to Stave Off Birds - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/08/12/633065620/growers-are-beaming-over-the-success-of-lasers-to-stave-off-thieving-birds
======
JoeAltmaier
Birds will arrive the day before fruit is ripe, and the whole flock will strip
the berries, trying each one and dropping the green ones on the ground looking
for a ripe one. They can strip a tree in minutes. Why? If they waited a day,
the whole flock could have ripe fruit. But its a flock, and any bird that
waits just loses out to the ones that don't wait. Tragedy of the commons,
played out in evolution.

~~~
rmrm
My Vietnamese buddy has a taste for not quite ripe fruit. He said in the old
country everyone would come steal your fruit as it ripened. He who could
stomach the greenest fruit won.

~~~
geomark
I've got a similar problem with chipmunks and the Marian plums I grow. The
chipmunks start raiding the trees when the fruit just begins turning yellow
and becoming fragrant. But all they do it take a bite and throw the still
somewhat green fruit on the ground.

~~~
deleteme12345
Get a cat/dog guard.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Cheap Chinese pellet gun is cheaper. I'm sure chipmunk will work nearly
interchangeably with squirrel in most recipes and arguably would be a little
less white trash.

------
bobthepanda
Would this have a terrible effect on insect populations as well?

The Four Pests Campaign of the Great Leap Forward targeted the sparrow,
amongst other animals, because they ate grain. Turns out they also ate a lot
of insects, so when the sparrows all died the locusts came in and killed the
harvest. These lasers don't kill, but permanently scaring them away from
fields could have a similar effect.

[https://io9.gizmodo.com/5927112/chinas-worst-self-
inflicted-...](https://io9.gizmodo.com/5927112/chinas-worst-self-inflicted-
disaster-the-campaign-to-wipe-out-the-common-sparrow)

~~~
Paul-ish
The advantage here is you can turn the lasers on right before the harvest
(when the birds do damage), but otherwise leave them off and the birds can
return.

~~~
neaanopri
But, if the birds derive a significant portion of their yearly calories from
eating berries during the harvest, you will still do damage to bird
populations. Also, an open berry field keeps birds nearby. If the birds can't
eat the berries, then what incentive do they have to stick around and eat
harmful insects?

I'm not necessarily against the bird-lasers, but it's worth considering their
side effects.

~~~
melq
The blueberries are only there because the farmer is planting them in the
first place. Though I agree with your sentiment.

~~~
nerpderp83
I work on a system that strives for 100% efficiency, I think it makes the it
extremely fragile. Loss is also tolerance for upset. It might be cheaper to
produce more and not implement this system at all. Innovation comes from
increase the size of the solution universe over micro optimizations.

------
oliwarner
I have a _tiny_ amount of experience in bird control. Birds are devious.

I don't mean evil. They're completely amoral, but they're clever. They'll work
out what's going on in order to get their food. Things that might take an
insect multiple _generations_ to work out and adapt to, a bird might spend a
day or a week on.

In the decade I've been shooting, I've seen many countermeasures (and lures)
come and go. Scarecrows consistently fail now. Propane cannons just annoy
residents. The birds adapt swiftly because their lives depend on it. That is
all to say, lasers won't last. I'd be surprised if they work for longer than a
few seasons before the birds are simply used to them.

The silly thing is we know why this is an issue. Intensive farming, outrageous
field size, the removal of hedgerows and the removal of predator habitats
(mature trees) have all meant massive colonies of pigeons and starlings _can_
exist. If you want to start peddling this back you have to reintroduce the
natural controls that used to keep things in check.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Just crank up the power on the lasers until they remove the offending birds
from the gene pool. The birds will figure out not to eat the crops.

~~~
oliwarner
There's a colossal difference in the amount of power required to blind or even
maim a bird and the amount required to humanely dispatch it. You're talking
thousands of Watts and pinpoint focussing.

It's just too expensive to park Navy grade laser weaponry on every field.

By comparison this is cheapo clutch of laser pointers strapped to a whirly-gig
and that already somehow commands $10k.

------
rmason
When I worked in the fertilizer business both the partners were berry growers.
Literally when they figured out their cost of production they allowed for the
'bird's share' of the crop. They tried sound machines, scare crows and air
cannons with nothing working very well. They would have been absolutely
delighted to have been able to use lasers to deny the birds their share of the
crop.

~~~
st26
The irony being, entirely possible the birds are providing valuable services
in the form of pest control. In other words, maybe they really do deserve a
share, & everyone is the better off for it.

~~~
Scaevolus
A swarm of 3000 starlings descending in the days before the farmers pick the
berries probably aren't providing much pest control.

~~~
GW150914
Maybe not for the farmer, but how about the general region? What we don’t know
about complex interconnects in ecosystems could fill volumes, but we still are
happy to disrupt that system for profit. Sometimes we try to disrupt it for
seemingly good reasons, like reducing the impact of a disease by killing
vectors, only later to discover said vector was also a pollinator.

We’re just too ignorant to be trusted with levers of questionable power over
such a complex system.

@vvanders: I hate to break it to you, but raspberries aren’t native to the
Americas either. Calling one species invasive while ignoring the plethora of
other species which have no significant history in a place is just a word
game. In fact raspberries can be classed as invasive, but so what? Raspberries
got about a 100 year head start on the starling, so they’re grandfathered in?
Feh.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I would hope and assume that the starlings can and have survived without the
rich pickings of farmers' fields.

~~~
GW150914
Maybe, but if we continue to build over what we don’t destroy outright, maybe
not. Farmer’s fields used to be wild land, along with highways, cities,
suburbs, clear cut forests, mines, office parks, etc. Those same birds also
have to cope with dwindling insect populations, toxic runoff, pollution, loss
of biodiversity, along with habitat loss. It’s sort of like saying that gulls
should be able to thrive without trailing fishing boats or stealing our
sandwiches, but of course that ignores how overfishing has crushed their food
sources.

~~~
code_duck
I’ve been driving through farmland in central North America recently and have
been struck by the lack of insects. 30 years ago, a windshield grew thick with
locusts and who knows what... not now. In hundreds of miles of backroads saw
couple deer and several mice.

It also shocking how little land was left forested and I utilized for
agriculture, in a way wildlife could still use the land, in areas like
Nebraska (maybe 2-3% and usually only if it can’t be used for crops or
cattle). And where they have left patches of forest, it’s used as a hunting
area.

~~~
nerpderp83
Forrests will be relegated to zoos soon enough.

~~~
code_duck
Nebraska was deforested at least a century ago.

------
scalablenotions
Headlines 10 years from now: "Scientists mystified by 'bird blindness' colony
collapse" "Laser manufacturers found to be spending millions on lobbyist
groups"

~~~
code_duck
Many birds are already in dramatic decline from threats like forest
fragmentation, southern deforestation, windmills, and cellphone towers. I
doubt they’ll be able to kill off black birds and seagulls, though.

~~~
craftyguy
> cellphone towers

Uh, how?

~~~
code_duck
[https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/technology/229210...](https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/technology/2292105-wildlife-
officials-say-planned-cell-phone-tower-danger-birds)

They fly into it and die since giant metal structures are not found in nature.
Makes sense, right? Tens of thousands of birds can die in one night on one
tower during migrations.

------
wyldfire
I suppose I might be a little naive, I assumed this use of lasers might be as
a weapon but the lasers are "merely" used like a scarecrow. [though the
article points out that some scientists will analyze whether this does harm to
the birds].

The article points out that this is actually more humane than poisons or guns
(which are presumably among previous technologies used to protect the crop).

~~~
mmirate
Thanks for saving me a click; I was about to get very interested in how they
would have solved the inherent energy-efficiency problems of that route.

Guess we'll have to wait another decade or two for accurate direct-fire air
defense systems. :(

~~~
trukterious
Bird-herding by drone is another potentially emerging technology:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17707305](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17707305)

------
walterbell
_> Researchers at Purdue University are studying the risk of injury to birds.
Principal investigator Esteban Fernandez-Juricic says very little is known
about whether lasers can harm the animals' retinas. "What we are trying to
assess is whether different levels of energy output of these lasers and
different levels of exposure time could cause any kind of retinal injury on
the animal," Fernandez-Juricic says. "These retinal injuries could potentially
be pretty serious and affect the ability of the animal to see and consequently
to find food, mates or refuge."_

In a separate study about seabirds and lasers,
[https://wsg.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/SBWG...](https://wsg.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/SBWG7_Inf_12-Laser-trials-N-Pacific-MELVIN-et-al_E_s_f.pdf)

 _> Attending seabirds (all species) showed little detectable response to the
laser beam during daylight hours. At night however, Northern fulmars (Fulmarus
glacialis) showed a transient and localized response at lower vessel speeds
(3.5 kts) while feeding in the offal plume. In contrast, gulls in flight at
nighttime in pursuit of the vessel showed a strong aversion at higher vessels
speeds (11 kts). These results suggest that laser beam detection by birds may
be more challenging at high light levels. The implication is that lasers might
be modified to increase its visual contrast during the day. From these field
trials, lasers appear more likely to scare birds from an abundant food source
at low light levels and success may be species and condition specific._

------
tomcam
We have blueberries planted at home but the deer always get them first. We’ve
just come to regard this as a cheap form of entertainment. We also grow
Rainier cherries, but birds spike them with amazing accuracy. They divebomb
the tree and somehow spear only the cleanest, freshest, best part of the
cherry on their way down. It is impressively accurate work at very high speed.

~~~
rootw0rm
we grew berries (blackberries, raspberries, loganberries) when I was a kid,
but our doberman would always pick the ripe berries before anyone could get to
them. she'd peel her lips back and use just her front teeth to pick them and
avoid the thorns.

------
solarkraft
Side note: The plain text site you're served when you disagree with data
collection is very nice.

~~~
cjg
Not sure why you can't have a bit of CSS just because you don't want your data
collected.

------
tinbad
This is completely off topic but the headline made me immediately think of
this: [https://youtu.be/TGkPMZxWPpA](https://youtu.be/TGkPMZxWPpA)

Since most here are not Dutch it requires a bit of explanation , this was a
parody video made in the early 2000’s of the countless “QVC” style
info/commercials that used to be aired during the day or late at night on
dutch television to fill airtime. They would take some b-grade TV products
from US (and possibly other countries) and just poorly dub it over for the
Dutch market, often by the same guy. These “Tellsell” (which I believe was the
actual name of the company) commercials everyone would know about and
sometimes joke about the crappy products and commercial style. This parody has
all the typical cliches of these commercials like every time the name of the
product was mentioned it would be extra sloooow and disadvantages of
“alternative” products exaggerated to comical extremes. I believe this video
came out before YouTube was mainstream, and circulated on USB drives and
shared on LAN parties. Ahh the old times (when not every piece of content ever
made was instantly available).

------
tlear
Living currently in Japan in somewhat rural area, lots of fruit growing
around. I am not sure why but there are A LOT of hawks and other birds of prey
around. I am guessing they are doing decent job controlling bird population.
Other then that there are scarecrows that mimic bop sort of like kites. Also
some people rig ventilators all around trees, spinning blades kill birds
perhaps?

Laser sounds really nice but they will need up the power to blind birds or
they will just learn to ignore it.

I am also really hoping for razor blade tipped ramming drones :)

~~~
bigpicture
> I am also really hoping for razor blade tipped ramming drones

In my high-rise neighborhood we have peregrine falcons. That's pretty much the
same thing.

------
xmichael999
Where can I buy such a laser? My yard is always covered in birds, and at least
twice a week birds get caught in my house (very open design). I would love
love love to be able to keep them away harm free.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I've seen gardeners hanging old CDs up to achieve a similar effect. Apparently
the way they swing around and glint in the sunlight deters birds.

------
mrfusion
They don’t explain how the lasers repel the birds. Especially in the day you’d
they wouldn’t notice green dots on a green background and it doesn’t seem like
that would scare them.

~~~
sarabande
The implication seems to be that the birds can see the dots in the daytime,
although we can't:

> They also work during the daytime. But in sunlight, the human eye can only
> see green dots dancing across the berry-laden bushes.

~~~
cjg
> although we can't

The quote says we can.

Perhaps just the dots is enough to deter them.

------
gok
Oh great now nature is going to adapt with laser-resistant birds!

~~~
mianos
Birds that can fly blind? They call them bats. They use echolocation. Some
species also like berries.

------
visarga
> Growers Are Beaming Over the Success of Lasers to Stave Off Birds

Once every 10 years there comes a moment when you can use "beaming" with this
sense. Funny how they couldn't help using it. I had to read twice to make sure
who's beaming lasers over the success.

------
rossdavidh
So, in the case of literal scarecrows, any bird that is naturally less
frightened by the scarecrow will be at a disadvantage because they will also
be slower to get spooked by the actual farmer (this only worked when
scarecrows were dressed in similar clothes to actual farmers, who would
periodically come out with a rifle and kill a few birds). In the case of the
laser, I don't see the downside for the birds that decide to ignore the laser,
and they get extra food, hence more offspring next year. I would not be
surprised if this stopped working in 5 years or so.

~~~
close04
They'll be slow to react to auto-targeting 100W lasers next year? :D

~~~
k__
Maybe we get some kind of mirror bird

------
tzs
I have a nice and bright green laser (10 mW) and I get plenty of birds (I put
out grain, seeds, and peanuts on my deck railing to attract birds and
squirrels), so some experimentation is called for.

There is a Dark-Eyed Junco [1] on the railing of my deck eating right now. I
put a green jiggling spot right on the railing in front of him on and near the
seeds he was taking...no reaction. I send the beam through the air in front of
him...no reaction. I was not able to find anything that got a reaction from
him. I didn't try putting the spot on him, such as on his foot, because I
didn't want to get close enough to risk an eye shot.

Unfortunately, it is close enough to sunset and it is cloudy today further
darkening things, so it looks like I'm not going to get anything other than
that Junco. Everything else seems to have decided it is time to bed down. Too
bad...on a sunny day I'd have some Steller's Jays [2] around at this time, and
I'm really curious to see what they think about the laser.

I'm particularly interested in comparing the Steller's Jays, and also the
crows that often come by, to small birds like the Junco, and also the
Chickadees and assorted types of Sparrows, because I've already observed
interesting behavior differences between the bigger birds in general and the
small birds.

The Jays and the crows are corvids. They are among the smartest birds. I had
expected when I started putting out food for these, especially the crows
(which are known to be able to easily learn to recognize individual humans and
learn which humans are threats and which are not) to quickly learn that I'm
not a threat. In fact, I was worried that they might end up learning to beg
for food.

I had expected the little birds, on the other hand, to always see me as a
threat.

In fact, it seems to be the opposite. After about 10 months of feeding, the
crows still will not come anywhere near if I'm outside on the deck. If they
are there eating and I start to come out they immediately fly away. They have
seen me come out and put out food. They have never seen me aggressive to any
bird (or other animal). Heck, they have seen me let squirrels come and take
peanuts from my hand, and seen my hold out a hand of seeds for small birds to
land on eat from.

The Steller's Jays are only slightly more accepting than the crows. They
immediately leave if I start to come outside, but if I stay outside, but a
couple meters away from where the in-shell peanuts are on the rail, they will
fly in, quickly grab one peanut, and fly away. (If I'm inside, they pick up
and put down several peanuts, apparently judging by weight which are the most
worthwhile, and then take the best--or take two if there is also a smaller one
that they can stuff in first leaving room to also carry one).

The little birds, though, after only a few weeks or so of my regularly putting
out food, would come and start eating while I was still putting out food. They
had no problem landing and eating newly placed food less than a meter from
where I was currently placing food.

These little guys, the Chestnut-backed Chickadees [3], went even farther.
Their favorite of what I put out seems to be out-of-shell peanuts (these birds
are too small to deal with in-shell peanuts). If I had put put seeds and grain
already, but not yet peanuts, I found I could hold out a palm full of out-of-
shell peanuts and the Chestnut-backed Chickadees would actually fly over, land
on my fingers, pick out a peanut, and leave [4]. They also would sometimes fly
over to me when I came out the door, and hover near my hands--I'm guessing
looking to see if I've got food for them.

(It's only the Chestnut-backed Chickadees that do this. I also get Black-
capped Chickadees, a couple different kinds of Nuthaches, and some other birds
of about that same size, and none of them got past the "will eat a meter away"
stage).

[1] [https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-
eyed_Junco/id](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/id)

[2]
[https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Stellers_Jay/id](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Stellers_Jay/id)

[3] [https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chestnut-
backed_Chickade...](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chestnut-
backed_Chickadee/overview)

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0)

~~~
titzer
> I had expected when I started putting out food for these, especially the
> crows (which are known to be able to easily learn to recognize individual
> humans and learn which humans are threats and which are not) to quickly
> learn that I'm not a threat.

Birds are second-level smart. They've seen hundreds, thousands of humans. Most
of them are a noops. The next largest fraction of them are pains in the ass.
The next largest fraction feeds birds, but still hates crows. Then there's
some fraction that feed animals just to trap/shoot/kill them, like rats,
squirrels, rabbits, doves, even deer. Ain't hardly nobody in hell that feeds
birds because they just _like_ doing that.

Birds are smart and they see everything. They aren't gonna chance it. Forget
about being friends.

But kudos on your careful eye.

------
huhtenberg
Makes you wonder how long it will take for the birds to adapt... and adapt
they probably will.

~~~
sampo
I'd guess 5-10 generations at the minimum.

------
FrozenVoid
One of advantages of greenhouses and vertical indoor farming is removing
pest/weed/animal access.

~~~
rootw0rm
yup, that's what all the cannabis growers out here in Cali say!

------
jcoffland
> ...lasers can burn your eyes if you look into them. It's the same danger as
> pilots being blinded by irresponsible people aiming laser pointers into the
> sky.

It's worth noting that there are no records of ground based lasers causing
damage to a pilot's eyes or causing an aviation accident. Not that it's a good
idea to point lasers at airplanes.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I presume by "blinded" they mean temporary blindness due to losing their night
vision, not permanent damage. The reason they don't cause accidents is because
they generally happen on approach or departure which are (or can be) fully
automated and therefore easy to abort. It's still very unpleasant for the
pilot.

~~~
Dylan16807
> I presume by "blinded" they mean temporary blindness due to losing their
> night vision, not permanent damage.

It says "burn your eyes" so I don't interpret it that way.

> The reason they don't cause accidents is because they generally happen on
> approach or departure which are (or can be) fully automated and therefore
> easy to abort.

If you're not on approach or departure, what kind of accident would even
happen? Especially when even a total loss of external vision still leaves you
with all your instruments.

------
Sniffnoy
So just how effective is this? What's the resulting yield compared to without
it?

------
chisleu
next, make it kill insects but not blind people when the ML goes wonky and it
shoots a kid in the eye

~~~
Eric_WVGG
A Microsoft CTO is working on it
[https://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_could_this_laser_z...](https://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_could_this_laser_zap_malaria/transcript?language=en)

------
jlebrech
they could keep their profit were they also a bird farm.

they could recalibrate the laser for that task.

------
21
Lovely, after destroying their habitat, now we hunt them with lasers :)

~~~
dang
This comment breaks several of the site guidelines, including the one that
asks you not to post shallow dismissals, and the one the asks you to please
respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a
weaker one that's easier to criticize. "Someone" here applies to stories just
as much as to comments. Also, the guidelines ask you not to snark.

You may have a good underlying point, but if you'd please review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and express your good underlying points more thoughtfully from now on, that
would be much less destructive and we'd appreciate it.

~~~
sometimesijust
I found those two guidelines ironic considering that calling something a
shallow dismissal without making reference to the original argument is in
itself a shallow dismissal that encourages weakening the interpretation of the
strength of an argument. It only gets worse when you consider the case of
domain experts giving concise commentary using domain specific language. Is an
argument shallow if you don't understand it?

------
rjplatte
I came for the pun

------
iamleppert
Lol @ the thought of threat to the bird’s eyes. An average beam is a few mm
across, and divergence quickly spreads the beam to trivial power. It would
probably happen once in awhile, but it would be incredibly rare to catch one
right in the eye. Add to that fact the birds seem scared away so it makes it
even more unlikely.

