Native birds can provide important financial benefits
Submitted by Chickowee on 31 Jan 2014.
Researchers from Charles Sturt University (CSU) working with Australia’s largest almond producer have found that some native birds are not simply pests as first thought, but provide important financial benefits to the almond grower.
“Bird damage to crops is one of the biggest problems facing growers of a wide variety of horticultural crops in Australia, and many control techniques are often uneconomical or ineffective,” said Dr Peter Spooner, an ecologist with the University’s Institute for Land, Water and Society.
“Our research showed that the benefits of native bird interactions with crops, in most cases, far outweighed the costs of crop damage.”
