IIf you're a farmer, you know the threat birds can pose to your crops: they eat fruit, damage leaves, and poop on plants. Bird droppings are more than just an eyesore; This is a food safety issue. Birds carry pathogens that can harm humans, such as bacteria. Salmonella And coliwhich continue to raise food safety concerns. A study published today in Journal of Applied Ecology offers a gentler way to control winged threats to crops than netting or spraying.
Scientists at Michigan State University conducted a study that examined a miniature falcon, the American kestrel (Sparrowhawk), as a living scarecrow for biological control. American kestrels, the smallest birds of prey in the United States, feed primarily on insects but will occasionally kill a bird or small mammal. So the researchers wondered whether kestrels could serve as a deterrent to crop pest birds such as robins, starlings and grackles.
The study was conducted in 16 cherry orchards in northern Michigan, half of which contained kestrel nesting boxes and half of which did not. By studying birds, bird droppings and crop damage along transects in orchards, the researchers compared fields with kestrels and fields without them. Using fine nets to catch pest birds, they collected fresh fecal samples, which they analyzed for bacteria. The researchers focused on the most common foodborne pathogen carried by birds. Campylobacter spp., which causes diarrhea in humans.
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Gardens with active kestrel nest boxes had significantly fewer pest birds and three times less bird droppings than plots without them. Kestrels obviously make good scarecrows. “They do a really good job of reducing fecal matter,” study author and agroecologist Olivia Smith said in an interview. statement.
About 10 percent of the fecal samples the scientists analyzed contained Campylobacter species While this does not guarantee that the bacteria were transmitted to humans through the cherry crop, it does highlight the safety risk that requires keeping birds away from the crops. Keeping kestrel boxes can be a win-win for farmers and falcons as the American kestrel population decreaseThis is reported by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
“Our results suggest that encouraging birds of prey using nest boxes may be one way for producers to conserve endangered species, reduce crop damage, and reduce fecal contamination of fields that can cause foodborne illness,” the study authors wrote.
Improving food safety with the icing on the cake is carnivore conservation.
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