Article published on Sunday December 17, 2006; Page A28 Washington Post

In His Battle With Pests, the Fun Is in the Arsenal

By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 17, 2006

TORONTO 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.

Dan Frankian's aerial ace in his fight to drive away such ne'er-do-wells as Canada geese is Clara, his 5-year-old Harris's hawk. (By Doug Struck -- The Washington Post)

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.