They appear to want to work with us, so we don't have what happened this spring. We've had some bumps in the road, but I think we're starting to pull together on this to get the answers we need. Farmers don't see poisoning as the final answer to the blackbird battle, but it could be a major weapon, Neuberger says. We've been told that this is a partial solution . . . for between eight and 10 years, and now we have another government agency for the immediate future putting a stop to it. North Dakota and South Dakota are the nation's leading sunflower producing states with a total of more than 2 million acres planted each year.
Officials estimate damage from blackbirds runs in the millions of dollars.
We'll just play the game and see how long they want to lay out the barriers. We just want to ensure that the best science that can be brought to the table is used. We've got to use the best science out there to know if this tool for protecting sunflowers . . . The whole idea of the spring baiting was to research that. Because it had some weaknesses, we had to point those out.