Poff says dogs are good at chasing away avian predators . Poff says many farmers try cannons, radios and inflatable dummies to scare birds. But the birds catch on to these tricks. Unfortunately, the birds are pretty smart. Poff says he thinks that fish farmers are starting to accept the feathered freeloaders as just part of the cost of doing business.
Most birds rely on instinct when they migrate.
Next year some whooping cranes might get help from an ultralight. This fall, about 170 rare whooping cranes will fly south from Canada's Northwest Territories to their winter home near the Gulf of Mexico. The flock is the only group of whooping cranes in the world that migrate. Biologist Jim Lewis hopes to change that. Lewis is Whooping Crane Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in New Mexico.