The municipality of Borger-Odoorn has started removing dozens of rook nests on Kerklaan and Prins Bernhardlaan in Nieuw-Buinen. With the intervention, the municipality hopes to eliminate the serious nuisance that local residents experience.
Residents of the village have been experiencing nuisance from the screeching and defecating rooks for years. In 2022, 25 reports were received from various households in Nieuw-Buinen. These reports were submitted by means of a petition that the residents signed. This related to the nuisance in the vicinity of the Kerklaan. There were forty nests in Nieuw-Buinen in 2020, now there are approximately 53.
Borger-Odoorn noticed the annoyance of the residents and decided to intervene. That is not an easy job, because rooks and their nests are protected. However, we managed to obtain an exemption from the province to move the nests to so-called management areas. The birds must be enticed to move to a grove on the west side of the village, along the provincial road N374. The work is carried out by Bureau Witteveen Groenprojecten en Advies. An employee uses an aerial platform to remove the nests from the trees.
Arborist Cornelis van der Wal expects the intervention to work. “I first take the nest out of the tree and then I saw away the fork, so that the tree becomes less attractive for the rooks to nest again,” says Van der Wal. The breeding season of the rooks starts in early March. “If the eggs are already in the nests, you are not allowed to chase them away, so we have to do that during this period,” says Van der Wal. Rooks can completely destroy a nest within two days, so the trees must be carefully monitored. “Otherwise you will immediately have the entire colony again and you can start removing it again the following year,” says the arborist.
The trees on Kerklaan and Prins Bernardlaan are no longer attractive to the birds, the hope is that they will leave for the provincial road themselves. If the rooks do come back, a technique has been devised.
The rooks are then chased away by the use of strobe lights. Witteveen employees will continue to monitor the ‘nestless’ trees this year. As soon as rooks start building a nest in their old place at the start of the new breeding season, volunteers will shine their lights. That light should keep the birds away. “Volunteers from the neighborhood will operate the lights, several people have already registered for this,” says a spokesperson for the municipality. Witteveen is responsible for the implementation of the project and the guidance and support of the volunteers.