We are still preparing this page. Please be patient. But here is already what we can provide or are currently developing:
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expertise to relocate rooks
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development of the moving wire for geese
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development of the sheep collar to teach wolves to stop killing sheep
Products - Rooks
Identifying routines of rooks and thus recognising where alternative nesting locations may be. The following videos show that rooks accept relocated nests and how rooks can start using an alternative. The nuisance can thus be solved while the rook colony can be spared
Three examples of alternative nesting locations, provided with nests placed in the trees. Rooks use these because the location conforms to the routines of the colony in question
Relocation of a rook colony causing nuisance in Hoogeveen cemetery. To be seen hereafter: the placement of 18 nests at the alternative nesting site, the relocation with more than 100 nests, the spontaneous February collection at the alternative the following year and the silence of the cemetery hereafter.
Products - Geese
We produce an animal-friendly device to chase geese away from a production field. A moving wire plays a central role in this. A goose that sees a moving wire coming towards it experiences this as a physical restriction, while the animal needs space to fly away. Therefore, the wire is permanently effective and geese will not get used to it. Meanwhile, the crop can grow as normal.
We worked with several partners to get from (1)a simple prototype, through (2) a robot version to (3) a wind-powered version of the moving wire. The following videos show the prototype on 2 ha and the robot on 30 ha. In both cases, the moving wire did not cause any crop damage and the geese avoided the wire.
Geese in the floodplains of the river IJssel. at 1:44, the first prototype of the moving wire (100 m of drive line and 200 m of repellent carrier connected transversely to it). At 3:35 you can see that the geese avoid the field covered by the wire. That while the device did not work for a few days.
Robot with active spindle that keeps the wire to the centre of the field in tension. The robot drives along the edge of the field, which is random in shape, according to a programmed GPS course. At 0:27, geese are seen flying away; the robot approaches but is not yet in view. It is the wire that has the chasing effect, because after 0:40 you can see (look closely!) that the geese in the field behind, i.e. behind the robot, do not fly away, although the robot does get close.
Products - Wolves
To unlearn wolves to target sheep, 3 new methodologies have been devised. The experience of hunting sheep will have to be changed for each element of hunting behaviour (approaching, biting and consuming). The following animation was developed for illustration purposes.
Of these methods, we developed the shock collar in cooperation with scientists from the bio-technical and electrical engineering faculty of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). Several prototypes have been tested on sheep for several years, because it is important that (1) the collar stays in position, (2) it does not bother the sheep in any way and (3) no injury or deterioration of the wool occurs. When a wolf bites it happens in the underside. This is where switches are attached to the collar. If a wolf bites, the switch is pressed and the wolf (and not the sheep) receives a painful electric shock in the mouth. Biting a sheep is immediately associated with a shock and therefore helps the wolf unlearn to kill a sheep.
