In A Nutshell Autumn 2026 | Page 12

INDUSTRY NEWS

Drone swoops in to tackle bird damage problem

12
Eric Long from AERIUM Analytics flew RoBird during demonstrations at the Almond Centre of Excellence in February.

“

The
TRIALS are underway to see if a
drone that mimics a peregrine falcon
can reduce crop losses in Australian
almond orchards and other crops.
AERIUM Analytics CEO Jordan Cicoria
said RoBird has been used in 13
different countries for a variety of bird
scaring purposes.
bird pattern, so they are not nesting
“ RoBird is being used in Europe in
anywhere near airports any more, so
blueberry farms, we’ re in Canada in
we’ re seeing a generational change
energy and mining operations, we’ re
now.”
using it in airports in Canada as well,"
AERIUM Analytics’ work in Australia is
he said.
being funded through Hort Innovation
“ The impact that it’ s had on
Frontiers and contributions from the
businesses so far has been pretty
Australian Government.
astounding.
The three-year project called Drone-
“ We’ ve been able to, with our partner
Enabled Bird Management for
airport, show a decrease of up to 75
Australian Horticulture( AS24007)
percent in large mass bird air strikes.
will focus on almond, summerfruit
“ We’ ve actually been able to change
and pome fruit in Victoria’ s Goulburn
In A Nutshell- Autumn 2026 Vol 27 Issue 1
impact that it ' s had on businesses so far has been pretty astounding.
- Jordan Cicoria, AERIUM Analytics CEO
Valley and strawberries in Caboolture, Queensland.“ We’ ve started in the Shepparton region and we’ re focused on almonds as our first crop,” Mr Cicoria said.“ So we’ ve been working in Shepparton for about three months now and really setting up the baseline case of success for specific bird species, as well as trying to quantify the decrease in the amount of loss due to birds.” Two different versions of RoBird are