This is scientific American 60 second science. I'm Emily Schwang.

Washington State is the country's largest producer of cherries and blueberries.

The state's wine industry is second only to California's in value.

But one non-native nuisance bird is wreaking havoc.

The European Starling was brought to North America more than a century ago by unwitting

naturalists who wanted to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays.

Today the Starlings do hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to

Washington's crops, but one man has taken it upon himself to get rid of those

birds without killing them. We're not terminators where our job description would be more like security guards.

Vage Alaverdian, raptor wrangler.

It's barely 6 a.m.

But he's been out in a field of Cherry trees in Yakima Valley since much earlier

He's working with a peregrine Falcon

And as long as the Falcon flies over these fields, fruit-loving birds like Robbins, finches, and starlings will not. Fourth generation fruit grower Mark

Roy estimates Alaverddians raptors save him thousands of dollars a day in otherwise lost produce.

So I mean it pays to come and to you know scare the birds away.

Birds of prey work where other traditional methods of bird abatement like scarecrows,

pyrotechnics, and netting fail.

Alaverdian says even the most modern technology is no match for

problem birds like Starlings. People said oh we're going to put you out of business

we've got drones we're going to program these drones and fly more blueberries and

then what you know eventually we're going to program these drones and fly more blueberries.

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