Pest and Environmental Specific Application of Ultrasound in Pest Control

Abstract

In an earlier work [1] and [2], it was advocated that electronic pest control devices should be pest specific as well as environmental specific in order to fortify them against habituation, a phenomena that has stirred controversies which affect smooth implementation of such devices. Weaver birds were selected as the specific/targeted pest while Doko community of Niger State, Nigeria is the specific environment for this work. Ultrasonic testing for determining the suitability of ultrasonic pest control devices for a specific location was deployed. This involves the use of independent equipment such as: 12 volt car battery, 500 watt inverter, signal generator, power amplifier and five ultrasonic transducers. Transmission frequencies between 5 kHz and 50 kHz was used for broadcast in selected weaver bird infected farms while observing the behaviour of the birds and computing the bird-flight, bird-return and the feeding-test data across the entire frequency band. Observation from the computed field data reveal that ultrasound at 25 kHz and 35 kHz effectively deterred the birds for the first three weeks, followed by a partial repulsion in weeks four and five, and finally became ineffective beyond week five. Recommendation was made for the design of an ultrasonic type of electronic pest control device operating between 25 and 35 kHz while intermittently incorporating local bird scaring parameters into the design consideration to effectively deter the rampaging weaver birds as well as delay habituation in the locality.