Use of Non-toxic Roost Repellent Jelly for
Bird Management Problem

By R.K. Bhatnagar and R.K. Palta

Complexities in Bird Management are many due to flight, intelligence, adaptability, by and large, multiple status of involved species and situations necessitating management. Some of these aspects are appreciable with examples of species like Indian National Bird, Pavo cristatus Linnacus, which is endangered, protected, venerated and may be problematic to agriculture in some situations (Mebrotra and Bhatnagar, 1979, and Agarwal and Bhatnagar, 1984). Similar are the cases of Common House Sparrow, Passer domesticus (Linnaeus) and Common Feral Pigcon, Columba livia in which in many urban situations (in particular the later specie) may be problematic (including in agriculture) with various types of nuisance. These could range to such various problems as causing contaminations with droppings in food storages, food, beverages, pharmaceuticals and also in sophisticated instrumentation plants etc. Dropping nuisance of Feral Pigeon may even cause serious problems of corrosions on aircraft bodies and other problems like choking of tubes etc. (Agarwal and Bhatnagar, 1984). Droppings may at times cause or pose health hazards with fungal and bacterial spores growing on rotten droppings. Lethal and many other management approaches (Mehrotra and Bhatnagar, 1979, Bhatnagar, 1984) can not be resorted to in many situations due to various limitations like religious sentiments and in large inhabited buildings etc.

Cited limitations necessitate development of alternate behavioural management measures, that are non-toxic and donot pose any sort of hazards to involved species etc. Amongst these repellents like auditory, optic and tactile (involving touch) have high importance in urbanised areas, particularly in large building complexes (including aircraft hangers) like hospitals, hotels and other sensitive residential complextes.

In view of above, certain experimental studies on use of roost repellent jelly a formulated product comprising 0.2% water based emulsions turned jelly (Pest-Go) of Butyl Acrylate, Methyl Methacrylate and Stryrene was tested in aviary cage (with five wild caught individuals of C.livia) and in a residential premise. Study approach comprised coating of 3 mm thick layer of jelly on three 10 x 100 cm plyboard sheets provided as roosts or perches. Along with these two similar untreated sheets were also provided for use as alternate untreated control roosting sites. Both types of sheets were affixed in cage for behavioural study as choice test. On these number of visits were recorded for four times a day starting at 9.00 Hrs and at gap of 80 minutes and each observation spread for 10 minutes, a ventilator ledge and top surface of carton used as roost were coated with jelly and visits of Feral Pigeons were recorded as aviary cage.

Observations revealed that in aviary under choice conditions, treated roost were visited at the initial stage in two cases by two pigeons but were deserted and subsequently were not visited or occupied by any of the individuals. Subsequent four observations spread over 4 days revealed that some sort of aversion has set in and birds avoid treated areas/sheets.

In the residential premise tests, pigeon visits comprised 2,2 and 1 at initial stage, but subsequently stretching of horizontal rows of metallised reflective polyester ribbon (Bird Scarning Ribbon) led to complete abondoning of the area by pigeons.

Table 1:
Occupancy of Jelly treated roosts by Feral Pigeons