ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2022
Deterrence of birds with an artificial predator, the RobotFalcon.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- A mechanistic understanding of collective escape in starling flocks.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Divergent Bird Diversity Patterns Among Four Airports in the Same Bioregion: Assessing Local-Scale Drivers of Bird Community Assembly.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Robotic animals as new tools in rodent neuroscience research: proposed applications of zooinspired robots for mouse behavioral testing.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- A robotic falcon induces similar collective escape responses in different bird species.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Deterrence of birds with an artificial predator, the RobotFalcon.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- Emergence of splits and collective turns in pigeon flocks under predation.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Self-organization of collective escape in pigeon flocks.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Collisions between birds and airplanes can damage aircrafts, resulting in delays and cancellation of flights, costing the international civil aviation industry more than 1.4 billion US dollars annually. Driving away birds is therefore crucial, but the effectiveness of current deterrence methods is limited. Live avian predators can be an effective deterrent, because potential prey will not habituate to them, but live predators cannot be controlled entirely. Thus, there is an urgent need for new deterrence methods. We developed the RobotFalcon, a device modelled after the peregrine falcon, and tested its effectiveness to deter flocks of corvids, gulls, starlings and lapwings. We compared its effectiveness with that of a drone, and of conventional methods routinely applied at a military airbase. The RobotFalcon scared away bird flocks from fields immediately, and these fields subsequently remained free of bird flocks for hours. The RobotFalcon outperformed the drone and the best conventional method at the airbase (distress calls). Importantly, there was no evidence that bird flocks habituated to the RobotFalcon over the course of the fieldwork. We conclude that the RobotFalcon is a practical and ethical solution to drive away bird flocks with all advantages of live predators but without their limitations.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.