Studying About Boars

• Wild Boar are the main vertebrate pests of agricultural crops in Bhutan.

• The traditional scarecrow that are found all over the country are just some Stick figures who are dressed like human.

• Here is a picture of a baby Boar that was found dead near the river side. The back story is that there was a boar attack in the village and the villagers let lose of the dogs and they had to stay guarding the crops all night. So in the process, the baby boar must have been separated from the rest of the group hence leading to be attacked by the dogs. It was a very disturbing story

• So first I need to study about them before trying to scare them away. I've went through several websites and even youtube videos online and researched about boars. I've linked the pages in the Reference below.

Colors Detected by Boars

• Wild Boars can detect the blue color but struggles with colors on the green and red spectrum.
• Even though they do not register red and green light, they are attracted and they move towards brightly lit areas opposed to shadowed areas. We can even direct a hog's movements with light alone.
• So from this I for sure know which color of LED lights to use.

Boar's Hearing

• A wild boar's hearing is so sensitive hearing, making up for their poor eyesight.
• They can hear a human whisper from 100 YARDS away. This usually helps protect them from predators but it can also be very problematic.
• Loud or High Pitched Noises will startle pigs/boars and they may also become stressed with prolonged exposure to noise.

Sounds That can Chase away A Boar

• Gunshots
• Airhorns
• Even Yelling
• Dogs barking

Site Visit to Agriculture Machinery Centre(AMC)

1. I heard it from one of my friends that there was a similar project to mine that has already been made in AMC in Paro, Bhutan which is an hour drive from Thimphu. So I decided to go there and see it for myself.
2. I met with an Engineer there who was very friendly and he explained about the scarecrow that they made. They used Arduino Uno as the microcontroller board, GSM Modem(Global system for Mobile Communications) and Relays.

3. The power supply is through electricity. They use a big lights and they have designed the model in a traditional way of how a scarecrow looks like by making the body with the dry hays. They even got the scarecrow dressed in our National dress.

4. They said that the model worked fine when tested in the room, but faced problems when placed in the actual field. They used PIR sensors and are placed in the "Eye" of the scarecrow but the problem was that when it was placed in the field, the sensor was also detecting the movement due to wind which was causing unnecessary disturbance.
5. They are now going to collaborate with CST(College of Science and Technology),Gedu,Bhutan to improve their model.
6. I cannot just give up and think that its not going to work out for me too. Since I've got limited time to complete my project, I'll make sure I can at least make the model work in a closed room.
7. Here is Ugyen posing with the scarecrow!!

References

About Wild Boars in Bhutan