Farmers around Loon have had damage to their crops for years, and that is due to the rookery from Marsdijk. The birds flock to the farm fields for food every day. At dusk they fly back to their colony in Marsdijk, where they wake up the local residents in the morning and defecate under them. After years of complaints to the municipality, local residents now have their way, with a partial relocation of rook nests as the first test. The rest follows with success.
According to De Willigen, the farmers will soon be ‘the billy goat’. “Farmers can get compensation for damage through a damage settlement with the province. But then they must first have taken the necessary measures themselves to prevent damage. This also includes the use of blasting equipment. But within 500 meters of a rookery you can’ don’t use a device at all.”
The landowners are therefore only worse off with the new situation, says De Willigen. “Because with such a protected rookery close to your lands, you know for sure that you will suffer considerable damage, but there is nothing you can do about it. As a farmer you are trapped.”
The board of Dorpsbelangen Loon demands that an alternative place for the rook nests be found. Or the guarantee that the province will make good claims settlements, even if farmers cannot drive away the rooks with blasting equipment. “And if not, we want the move to be reversed in the short term, at least before the breeding season.”