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DMRC Installs Dartboards To Scar Birds Away

With birds causing short-circuits, sparking and even tripping of the entire Delhi Metro system, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has now come up with an innovative way to keep the winged intruders at bay.

The corporation has put up colourful dartboards on overhead electrical lines at Kashmere Gate to start with and has actually noticed at steep decline in the number of birds. Seeing the success rate in the first fortnight, the experiment is now being extended to more stations.

The dartboards are made of two sheets of laminated plastic stuck on either side of a foam sheet, which makes the placard thick and sturdy. It is laminated to make it weather proof. To start with, about 25 dartboards have been pung from low-tension earth wires and overhead structures of the station with thin metal wires. Care has been taken to ensure that the dartboards are all light weight, so even if they fall, no hurt is caused to people queued up at the station.

Plagued by problems being caused by birds on the system, especially during the nesting season - when birds make nests on high tension wires leading to short circuits and even electrocution of birds as well as littering of stations, trains and tracks with droppings - metro officials hit upon the novel idea after a company manufacturing lifts and escalators told them about it.

"The Chennai-based company had put up dartboards several months ago and have seen 100 percent results. So DMRC also got similar boards made, which were put up at the station on an experimental basis on October 7. We don't know the scientific logic behind the technique yet, but it has shown results as the number of birds have gone down by about 70 percent," said Anuj Dayal, DMRC's chief spokesperson.

Companies selling similar products abroad to scare birds from fields claim that when such visual devices - called scare-eyes - are suspended from trees, birds are repelled by their bright colours and unusual design, as the bull's eye pattern apparently exaggerates the glaring eyes and big mouth of a predator. Further, research has shown that maximum effectiveness is obtained by rotating the colours.

DMRC has placed an order fro another 2,000 dartboards which will be put up on another eight stations on an experimental basis. Each piece is being procured at a cost Rs. 60

Source: Times of India