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Welcome to the University of California, Davis (UCD) crow control web site where you will find information on building and operating the UCD crow repeller for use in almonds.  This website was the result of a study conducted by the UCD Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department and the Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Department, with funding provided by the Vertebrate Pest Control Research Advisory Committee of the CDFA.  The goal of the study was to design an inexpensive and simple broadcast unit for hazing crows out of almonds, develop a field protocol for deploying the units, and evaluate the effectiveness of the field protocol.  The repeller and field protocol proved effective, with one test site showing a damage reduction from 6.0 kg/ha in the first year to 1.1 kg/ha in the second year after treatment. Another site showed damage reductions from 18.2 kg/ha to 4.8 kg/ha.

In the Documents section you will find papers describing the study and results, the field protocol, and sound files of the crow distress calls used during the study.  All the documents and sounds are available for download.  The Construction section contains information for people interested in constructing their own broadcast units.  The Photos section contains images of the broadcast units, study orchards, and examples of crow and rodent damage and how to tell them apart.  The information contained in the pages of this web site is provided to the public for free distribution.

This research was supported by the Vertebrate Pest Control Research Advisory Committee of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.  We thank Ken Wada, Joe Conant, Joe Diedrich, James Diedrich, Randy Bishop and Eli Akel from Campos Brothers Farms, and Rod Parichan and Ken Austin from Thomas Farms for cooperating with us and allowing us to use their production orchards for this study.  We also thank those who helped locate cooperators for this study: University of California Cooperative Farm Advisors Mark Freeman and John Edstrom, as well as pest control advisor Randy Delerio.