Gazzola Farms installed the laser bird deterrent in 2018 and says a few months later it decreased bird presence by up to 90%.
Farm manager Dean Gazzola says only after a few months of using the laser bird deterrent device, results were seen.
“We are extremely happy with the system, and I would definitely recommend it to my neighbours as it is easy to use and extremely user-friendly. We will continue to get more until all parts of the farm are covered.”
The AVIX Autonomic Mark II, made by European company Bird Control Group, is a fully automated laser bird deterrent device and the essence of the solution lies in the projection of a laser beam that effectively spooks birds without hurting them.
The company says birds see the laser beam differently than humans.
“We see it as a point of light, but birds see the whole beam. They perceive it as a solid object, like a stick of light, which triggers the danger aspect instinctively and they feel they’re under attack, therefore, this causes them to leave the area.”
Gazzola Farms, a family-owned company, is one of the leading vegetable growing operations in Australia. Operating since 1932, it provides a variety of lettuce, celery, and Asian greens to sell across Australia. Based on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, Gazzola Farms harvests their crops all year round, which in turn invites intruders onto the farm. The most problematic uninvited guests are wood ducks.
Currently, Dean and his brother Alex Gazzola manage over 200ha in Boneo, Victoria. With the large potential crop yield, the threat of wood ducks increased. The brothers frequently find 20-30 ducks per field, with the lettuce and celery destroyed.
Dean says this means that overnight Gazzola Farms would lose a couple of hundred dollars worth of lettuce as a consequence of ducks foraging. As a result of the severe damage to their crops, they began the search for a cost and time-effective solution.
However, the limitations of the traditional bird control methods were not appealing to Gazzola Farms.
An attempt to scare birds away with scare guns, created a noise disturbance for neighbouring properties. Meanwhile, visual methods were not successful as a permanent solution to deter the birds either, as the birds quickly became accustomed to them.
