Mullin figures it cost the Great American Ball Park $3,500 every week throughout a nine-month season to clean up after the birds. “Bird infestations and droppings have caused problems for all sorts of buildings and structures worldwide,” said Zemsky. “Bridges, municipal buildings, courthouses, airports, golf courses, warehouses, loading docks, and more are subject to the property devaluation, cleaning costs and health risks associated with these messy intruders. It’s unlikely that any stadium or sports complex anywhere will never have a bird problem, unless they’ve taken preventive steps to keep birds from taking up residence in the first place.”

All Bases Covered…With Guano

Ignoring the problem was simply not an option, according to Mullin. The cost of cleaning and repainting bird-fouled areas was considerable, and the birds themselves created an unpleasant atmosphere for the more than two million annual visitors to the stadium. Not to mention that bird droppings and dead birds were a significant health concern. The stadium’s location on the Ohio River meant dried excrement easily became airborne. And if droppings ever met concession areas, health officials could conceivably shut down concession operations.

The problem evolved after city and county officials successfully blocked pigeons from roosting under overpasses near the stadium. “The city placed netting on walkways and overpasses outside the stadium, and the birds moved to the stadium,” said Mullin.

Mullin’s options were limited by local ordnances on how businesses can deal with bird infestations. Poisoning and shooting were prohibited, as were bird spikes, even though they are not a lethal option, just an uncomfortable roost inhibitor. Mullin’s team tried noise deterrents and plastic owls.

“They laughed at us,” recalled Mullin. “The birds pooped on the plastic owls.” For the Great American Ball Park, netting was the answer. The netting was easy to work with and install, said Mullin. He chose polypropylene, a lightweight but heavy duty netting that is UV stabilized for longevity of up to 20 years and nearly invisible from a distance, so it doesn’t distract from the stadium’s architectural appeal.

After installation in February in preparation of opening day on April 2, Mullin said the park saw a “dramatic change by mid-May.”

A few states away in Nebraska, the operations staff at the University of Nebraska— Kearney fought a similar battle. Nestled in a pastoral setting 130 miles west of Lincoln, the university is home to 6,500 students. Because of the campus’ proximity to corn and wheat fields, the grounds were a favorite of crows seeking the plentiful food supply nearby.

They seemed especially fond of the university’s athletic facilities, where they roosted under the stadium bleachers and nested on the athletic fields, according to Lee McQueen, UNK’s facilities director.

“The problem was so bad that people used umbrellas to protect themselves from bird droppings while walking across campus, because the birds roosted in every tree,” McQueen recalls. Toys at a nearby daycare center were regularly rendered useless because they were covered in droppings. University grounds keepers patrolled the campus after dark, beating metal tubs with spatulas to try to scare the crows away. After a few years of crow occupation, the campus was buried beneath the build up.

Desperate, university officials began seeking solutions. Their quest led them to Bird-X, which not only sold the university the products needed to rid the campus of crows, but also provided advice on how to keep the birds from returning once they left. The solution for the university was a combination of high-tech and low-tech devices.

Ultrasonic and sonic repellers – devices that produce both high and low frequency sound waves – were placed around campus. The sounds generated by the devices can range from noise that simply annoys the birds to sounds that mimic the cries of predators or the distress calls of injured birds.

Ultrasonics create sounds that are inaudible to humans but are highly distressing to birds, Zemsky says. Most of the devices offer multiple volume settings and can be set to generate a varying range of noises that are offensive to birds.

In addition to installing sound repellers, staff sprayed trees with a nontoxic but tacky liquid bird repellant. Next, they positioned large commercial grade visual devices specifically designed to scare pest birds – huge spheres festooned with holographic owl faces – around the campus. Within three months, of starting the treatment, the crows left.

Mullin and McQueen solved their bird problems the right way, with non-lethal methods, said Bird-X’s Zemsky. “Not only are lethal methods prohibited in many areas, they are also doomed to failure. Killing the birds may appear to eliminate the problem, but really all you are doing is creating an opportunity for more birds to move in.”

Non-lethal methods work long-term, because they teach birds that a location is undesirable.

“Birds are very smart, and they are creatures of habit. If you can convince them that a location is no longer safe for them, they will leave and not return,” says Zemsky. Mullin agrees that making the stadium inhospitable to the birds was the key.

“Our contacts at the Cincinnati Zoo kept telling us we had to completely disrupt the birds’ roosting patterns; otherwise, they would just keep coming back.”