Abstract:Damage or loss from bird activity is a worldwide concern, impacting many industries (including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and electric power distribution), aircraft safety, epidemic disease transmission, and human health. Bird damage can cause huge economic losses, and it is difficult to prevent and control. [Objectives] Our goal is to compile a list of birds which damages to crops in Xinjiang Provence, the northwest of China. On the basis of understanding their patterns of activity, we propose effective control measures. [Methods] Our study was based on transect censuses, questionnaires, bird counts in mist-nets, and bird stomach contents. We set up observation points in Moyu, Wushi, Baicheng and Changji counties, with a latitudinal span from N 37° to N 44°, and a range of habitat types including farmland, orchard and reservoirs, over the period from 2019 to 2021. Different hazard levels were preliminarily divided through field observations, bird quantity census, feed intake and questionnaire analysis (n = 881 persons or families), (Table 1). [Results] A total of 49 bird species were recorded in 40 genera, 19 families and 10 orders harmful to agriculture, which has exceeded more than 10% of the number of bird species in Xinjiang. These species mainly damaged corn, wheat, rice, grapes, dates, oil sunflower, potatoes, watermelons, common melons, walnuts, strawberries, and Chinese wolfberry. Among these losses, winter wheat (52.9%) and wine grape (14.4%) were the most significant. For the whole investigation area, the probability of bird presence is about 28.6% (Table 2), which decreases from north to south (R2 = 0.893, P < 0.05). In some places, it is estimated that the harvest could be damaged by approximately 26.6%. Only 18.0% of farmers use big horns, mist-nets, scarecrows, chemicals, or other measures to take preventive measures. At present, insurance claims and government subsidies are very small, less than 9.53% (sometimes no any relief or compensation). In order to prevent harm, some farmers have set up sticky bird nets or traps in the farmland. The most common birds caught by the nets were starlings (44.8%) and sparrows (28.4%). The diet of starling which the so-called beneficial bird in China has changed greatly, which is closely related to excessive reclamation and heavy use of pesticides. In addition, sparrows and starlings not only made harms to cereal crops, but also to fruit crops. The conflict between birds and humans has lasted for thousands of years, and in 1950s, there was even a great national movement to eliminate “sparrows” in China. [Conclusion] Bird damage on crops and fruits is related to food security, so we must pay attention to it. Finally, we discussed the measures to repel birds, including biological control, chemical expulsion, and physical intimidation (See pictures). In fact, to prevent bird damage effectively and harmlessly during the bird repellent is also a way to protect the birds.