SOME ducks, particularly goldeneyes and eiders, can be a pain for mussel
farmers. 鈥淚t鈥檚 eiders鈥� main source of food鈥攖hey swallow mussels whole,鈥�
says Robert Furness from the University of Glasgow.
To ward off the pests, farmers usually chase them with speedboats. But
Furness and his colleagues in Scotland and Canada have come up with a simpler
solution鈥攑laying back underwater recordings of the boats. The recordings
were between 50 and 80 per cent effective at scaring the ducks away, whereas
recordings of other noises had no effect at all (ICES Journal of Marine Science,
vol 58, p 517).