IN HIS BATTLE WITH PESTS, THE FUN IS IN THE ARSENAL
by: Doug Struck, Washington Post Foreign Service

The Washington Post
December 17, 2006 Sunday
Final Edition

Dan Frankian peered over a city fence and saw his target. There,
plump and oblivious, were the intruders. The freeloaders had simply
moved in from the country, gorged themselves on the abundance of the
city and left a nasty trail wherever they went. They were Canada geese.

Frankian mulled over the tools at his command this day. Digger,
looking expectantly from the front of his pickup truck, has been
Frankian’s loyal companion for 20 years. The springer spaniel is
slowed by age but still game for a good chase.

In the back of the truck was Cody, another spaniel, half Digger’s
age and just itching for a run. And finally, in a dark cage fashioned
from a garbage pail, was his secret weapon: Clara.

Clara is a 5-year-old Harris’s hawk. If the Canada geese scorned the
dogs, Clara could be loosened from a secure strap on Frankian’s arm
to take to the skies, to wreak terror on any avians below.

"Usually, just the sight of a bird of prey will work," he said.

For Frankian, who considers his company the SWAT team of pest
controllers, the fun is in the arsenal. While most competitors do
their work with some traps or fireworks or nets, Frankian and his
Hawkeye Bird Control offer a full range of persuasive techniques.

Like five dogs. More than 100 hawks and falcons. A few owls. And even
three bald eagles — "the big bang in bird control" — which can be
unleashed to reclaim the sky from unwanted wildlife.

Toronto and its environs are rife with such wildlife, in the air and
on the ground. The urban center lies on a major flyway for millions
of Canada geese, swans, ducks and songbirds. They join the regular
city slickers — pigeons, and sea gulls from nearby Lake Ontario —
to infest any available water and to foul parks, lawns and green space.

The city also is overrun with raccoons, which gleefully feast on trash
collection days despite a minor industry built around garbage can
locking devices. The raccoons and squirrels often move inside homes
for the winter, making holes under eaves. And not far from town,
Canada’s iconic beavers industriously rework streams to make lakes
and chomp down forests into stumps.

Frankian, 42, takes on all. Most pest control companies here are
permitted only to cart a trapped raccoon, for example, for release
a half-mile away, barely a commuter trip. James Bond-like, Frankian
is licensed to kill in some circumstances. But he would rather not,
he said.

"If I can move an animal without killing it, and it can go on living,
I’ll do it. I won’t needlessly shoot something for nothing," he said.

Often, he outlines the choices to his clients.

"They look at me and say, ‘What do you think we should do?’ I say:
‘If I walk up and shoot it, it’s going to cost this much. A live trap
costs this much. A kill trap costs this much.’ "

And how many clients take the cheapest option? "About 50-50," he said
with a shrug. Governments are often most averse to culling pests.

"Even the military seems to have a conscience these days."

Frankian, like the birds he chases, also has flitted about. An Armenian
born in Lebanon, he immigrated to Canada when he was a youth, served
in the Canadian military and then turned a hobby of falconry into a
business with four offices and 18 employees.

He has obtained an unusual array of permits, including a fur trapper’s
license, and specialties that include mountaineering on city buildings
and using hazardous-material equipment to remove bird droppings.

His clients are governments that want to clean up their municipalities,
airports that want to reduce landing hazards, companies that are
finding fowl on their property too foul and residents plagued by
wild visitors.

He has worked in mines (pigeons in the shafts), oil rigs (gulls)
and refineries (birds and animals). He’s chased skunks out of mills
and worked as far afield as Thailand and Ecuador, he said.

This day, he decided Cody and Digger would do the work.

"The dogs are really effective," he said. He typically brings them
every day for a couple of weeks to clear a municipal park or a business
site. This client is a food processing plant that does not want bird
droppings on its grounds. Eventually, the "birds decide it’s not a
good place to be. They move on, and we don’t have to kill any."

If that doesn’t work, his birds of prey do. Frankian sounds like a
proud parent as he describes the diving attack of a hawk.

"You just hear a big thud and see a puff of feathers," he said. "All
the other birds see that, and they start flying like crazy out
of there."

As Frankian’s blue pickup truck approached the Canada geese, the birds
looked up, straightening necks. The moment was still. And then Cory
and Digger bounded out of the truck, spaniel ears flapping, throats
in full bark.

With surprising speed, the geese leapt into the air, abandoning the
slow takeoff of their usual leisurely flight. They rose and receded
into the distance with honking complaint.

They might be back, Frankian admitted. But so will he.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress