Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

Wild birds pose unique food-safety risks to agriculture as they may carry multiple zoonotic pathogens, are difficult to exclude, and most are federally protected. As a result, the fresh produce industry regularly expresses concerns about these risks, and growers are sometimes instructed to not harvest crops around wild bird feces, potentially causing yield reductions and food waste. Farmers thus have financial incentives to reduce bird fecal contamination on their crops. However, existing bird deterrent methods can be expensive, have significant deleterious conservation implications, and/or are often ineffective. Thus, it is imperative to develop a holistic understanding of the true food-safety risks associated with wild bird communities and to inform growers and industry professionals about which birds, if any, represent substantive food safety concerns. Here, we evaluate the food-safety risks of wild birds, from the point of entering farms through harvest of the crop via three complementary approaches.