Gas Gun Bird Scarers

The issue is the irresponsible landowners/farmers that place these devices on or close to a public right of way or public highway etc without regard to anyone else. Unfortunately Gas Gun bird scarers can prove to be dangerous and if landowners/farmers are not prepared to comply with a voluntary code then legislation is required so that they can be easily prosecuted.
 
If they are placed in a correct place, they are fine. When they are right next to where you may be riding a horse, this is very silly.

A good majority of the time it's probably not had much thought from the farmer; however, where I used to keep my horse, there was a green lane with public access for horses, bikes etc. One very silly farmer put a gas gun almost right next to the track, with the gun bit pointing at the track. At the time I pointed it out and said to one of my friends, if that goes off and scares someones horse, and they do some damage, they could sue that farmer for a lot of money... as putting it there really was sheer stupidity when the lane got a lot of horse traffic through it!
 
While bird scarers are a PITA for riders, I won't sign the petition either. A farmers liveihood is more important than my hobby. I would like to see the NFU code adhered to by everyone, but by asking for a ban, what would be next petition ? Ban shoots near hacking routes? Do we ban combine harvesters where bridlepaths edge around crops ?

There are other solutions,
-Speak to farmer and ask for it to be moved,
-Ask for a warning sign where the noise might disturb others using the countryside,
-Hack another route while they are going off,
-Or speak to the bridleways officer about having a gate put at the end of a bridleway where it meets a busy road. This might have saved the horse in PN's example.
 
PeterNatt said:
Having had to endure several Gas Gun Bird Scarers going off from 8.00 a.m. until 9.00 p.m. all over the Christmas period I phoned two of the local landowners/farmers and calmly explained the problems they were causing to me and asked them to do something about them. Sadly neither of them did anything.
In my opinion Gas Gun Bird Scarers cause a danger to horse riders.
Sadly there are some Landowners/Farmers who will not comply with the voluntary NFU Bird Scarers Code of Practice and so as to avoid further disturbance or accidents legislation is sadly required so that those that choose to ignore the voluntary code of practice can be compelled to comply by using legislation.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately OP the birds still eat the crops (which are probably more precious this year than most) over Christmas. A peril of living in the countryside I'm afraid. I do get the feeling OP that you would like gas bangers banned completely, and are using horse owners to jump on the band wagon for your cause. Personally, we have loads of gas bangers around near us (some could be better placed) but I'm sure a word with your surrounding land owners would sort this out rather than an online petition!

Maybe there needs to be better regulations in place, but I'm not sure this is the way to go about it.
 
horserider said:
While bird scarers are a PITA for riders, I won't sign the petition either. A farmers liveihood is more important than my hobby. I would like to see the NFU code adhered to by everyone, but by asking for a ban, what would be next petition ? Ban shoots near hacking routes? Do we ban combine harvesters where bridlepaths edge around crops ?

There are other solutions,
-Speak to farmer and ask for it to be moved,
-Ask for a warning sign where the noise might disturb others using the countryside,
-Hack another route while they are going off,
-Or speak to the bridleways officer about having a gate put at the end of a bridleway where it meets a busy road. This might have saved the horse in PN's example.
Click to expand...

This. The more we restrict others inconvenient but legal activities for the benefit of our hobby, the more it gives other groups the feeling of entitlement to do the same to horseriders (walkers trying to get horses banned in parks and other multi user tracks etc, motorists saying we shouldn't be on the road). I do think the code of practice should have more force but I would not support a ban at all.

The fact that some accidents have happened could equally be used to support a lot of other things being banned that we wouldn't dream of banning - picking this out for a total ban is not giving respectful weight to the other side of the coin. Perhaps campaigning for farmers to have a few more rights to control the out of control pest species on farms would be more productive as they decimate the rest of the wildlife.
 
The Gas Gun Bird Scarers being used in this area are very much more powerful than conventional ones and some are set so as not to have a regular fireing pattern which makes it impossible to know when they will explode (even if one knows where they are).
Unfortunately we have a situation were some landowners/farmers just refuse to comply with the NFU code of practice despite having been asked to do so on a number of occasions. In this area of North Hertfordshire Gas Gun Bird Scarers are used all the year (apart from the months of August and September). Only 22% of Public Rights of Way in Great Britain are of a status which allows horse riders to use them so those that we can use are precious to us. I am unable to use our local network of bridleways or even some roads because of bird scarers being placed very close to them and I do not want my young horse to take fright and us to have an accident. I have got every right to use these public rights of ways and these bird scarers are being used to intimidate me and prevent me from using them.
I have got no issues with landowners/farmers using these devices as long as they situate them well away from public rights of ways and public highways.
DEFRA asked for a study to be carried out on the effectivenes of Gas Gun Bird Scarers which clearly indicate that there are other more effective methods for controlling pests.
Here is the link for your interest to the two documents:
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/noise/research/birdscaring/
 
I've signed it because there is a new generation of gas guns which are far more powerful than those used previously. Only one farmer in the area uses one - two others believe they are much too anti social, even in a sparse populated area and "couldn't stand the racket"
My horses are very much used to gunshots - we live on a shooting estate, but this had them panicking in their stables! :(
 
Ozpoz: You are quite correct the latest generation of Gas Gun Bird Scarer 'Megablasters' have a greater sound output by 68db and a very much wider frequency range being dispelled from them when they explode. They can also be set to an arbitary exploding sequence which means it is impossible to determine when they will explode and how many times they will explode at a time.
One of the local landowner/farmers has one and the explosion actually broke one of my windows.
 
A REAL scarer was in a field trialing crops near me a couple of years ago. An amazing thing that inflated a balloon human figure with a whoosh around 4ft high the same time as a big bang. It was quite an experieince which fortunately didn't last long as it sometimes burst the balloon figure. Now if that set up had caught on I could imagine heart attacks from just ordinary walkers let alone dogs & horses..
 
I came accross a 'Jack in the Box' one just to the side of a bridleway. Their was a hiss and suddenly a bright orange Michelin man appeared coming out of the box and then several projectiles on the end of elastic cord were projected skywards at the same time as 4 rapid and loud explosions. Not very pleasant at all and my normally bmbproof/spookproof horse took off in fright.
 
After this morning ride out with my friend on her youngest and me on my old chap I will be asking who farms that area as one was so close to the bridleway neither horses woukd go past it. Mine snorted and grew to 20hh then took off awwy from it causing my friend's horse to follow. Luckly manged to pull up quite quickly. Mine carried non snorting even at a distance. Now he is used to shooting as tge farm holds clay pigeon shooting at weekends. !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top