Bird Control Application Considerations
May 21, 2012
I'm Steve Schuster, associate editor of
Maintenance Solutions magazine. Today's topic is bird control.
Few problems facing grounds managers in institutional facilities are as vexing — and potentially costly — as bird control. Birds come in a range of sizes, do varying degrees of damage to landscapes and facilities all year round, and can be maddening to truly control.
The rise of sustainability has added a layer of complexity to this challenge. In addition to weighing the cost and performance of any potential solution, managers also need to consider the product's impact on the birds and the larger environment.
Managers looking for strategies and products to control birds in and around their facilities must first consider the potential threat the birds pose to human health.
While health and safety get a great deal of attention in discussions of bird control, managers also know that birds can be a major threat to the buildings on their landscapes.
Such problems turn into major scheduling, workload and cost challenges for managers and their departments. The one element of bird control that managers probably gave little consideration to a decade ago is sustainability. Now, the impact of bird-control products on the environment is a high priority.
Given the evolution of products designed to address bird-control problems humanely, cost-effectively, and sustainably, managers should consider working closely with manufacturers to understand products' benefits and limitations and to ensure they specify the most effective product for their problem.
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