Flap Off Bird Control

Laser bird control that sends gulls packing.

A solar-powered laser gull deterrent, built safety-first and run from a remote phone dashboard.

Flap Off dashboard login Follow the field test

Experimental prototype · first field test on Poop Island, 2026–2027

Poop Island in summer 2023, seen from a boat: a red cabin with a silver metal roof among trees, gulls perched along the roof ridge and packed on the rocky shoreline, more gulls circling overhead — Poop Island before the system, summer 2023: gulls on the roof ridge and lining the shoreline.

The problem

Gulls take over islands, docks and waterfronts

Once a flock of ring-billed and herring gulls decides a place is theirs, it stops being yours. Spikes, owls and flags only go so far, and the birds learn fast.

Poop Island before the system, summer 2023, filmed from a boat along the shoreline. Open the clip

This is Poop Island

Hundreds of ring-billed and herring gulls on the roof ridges, packed along the rocky shoreline and wheeling overhead. Todd Pierantoni bought the island and hasn't been able to enjoy it since.

We couldn't even get close to the dock. Between the smell and the gulls diving at us, it was impossible to set foot on the island.

Chad Robertson

That's the problem Flap Off is being built to solve, and Poop Island is where it's being tested first.

Follow the field test

Droppings

Docks, decks, boats, roofs and beaches end up coated. It's unpleasant, unsanitary and a constant clean-up job.

Damage

Stained finishes, fouled gutters and roofs, torn covers and nesting debris on property you'd rather be enjoying.

Noise

A colony is loud from first light. Mornings on the water turn into a shouting match you can't win.

Gulls are protected. Ring-billed and herring gulls are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. This system is designed to haze them, so they choose to go somewhere else, without harming them.

How it works

A moving green dot on the ground

Gulls tend to treat a fast-moving dot of green light on the ground as a threat and move off. The turrets sweep it across the land where gulls like to sit, never at the birds and never at people.

Below the horizon

The beam only ever points down at the ground below the horizon, in sweeps across the island's open land.

Dawn and dusk

A light sensor and a schedule focus activity on dawn and dusk, when gulls come in to settle and the dot shows best.

Random patterns

Sweeps, pauses and paths are randomized, with rest periods in between, so the birds don't get used to it.

Solar + Starlink

Off-grid on solar and LiFePO4 batteries, in industrial weatherproof housings, online over Starlink with a phone dashboard.

Safety first

Built to switch off, not to keep going

Lasers deserve respect. Every layer below works on its own, so one failure doesn't leave a beam running.

Person detection shutoff
A camera watches the coverage area. The moment it sees a person, every laser on every unit goes off and stays off until nobody has been seen for 120 seconds. It can't be overridden from the dashboard.
Fail-safe
If the camera or its watcher goes offline, or can't see, the lasers stay off. No picture means no laser.
Shoreline-mapped limits
Each turret's aim limits are mapped from the island's real shoreline, direction by direction, so the dot always lands on land with a margin inside the shore. Never on the water, where reflections are unpredictable.
Below-horizon mechanical stop
A physical stop keeps each turret from tilting up to the horizon, whatever the software does.
Key switch
No key, no laser power. The units can't fire without it.
E-stop physical on premium
The dashboard's E-STOP turns off every laser on every unit. The premium version adds a physical emergency-stop button on the hardware.

Coverage map of Greenfield Island: the two roof turrets' zones in orange and blue, clipped to stay inside a dashed safety margin within the shoreline, with no-fire sectors back over the roof — The shoreline-mapped coverage on Greenfield Island. Both zones stop inside the dashed safety margin, and no-fire sectors keep the beam off the roof.

What the phone shows when the camera sees someone: every unit held off, with a countdown to clear.

The dashboard

The whole system in your pocket

Arm, patrol and check on every unit from anywhere over the cloud relay. Same brand, same safety states: red means stop, amber means the camera can't vouch for the area, and laser green only ever means the laser.

The dashboard on a desktop: unit cards, status chips, control panel, both roof turrets and the manual aim pad with the shoreline limit

Live status for each unit: armed, patrol, battery and connection
Patrol, manual aim and timed scares, with patrol areas and schedules
Camera snapshots, person-detection banner and a full event history
One E-STOP for every laser on every unit

The hardware

Two roof turrets and a portable pole unit

Everything is designed to live outdoors on an island: weatherproof, solar-powered and reachable over Starlink. These are renders of the prototype design.

Render of a roof turret on the house ridge: a pan-tilt laser head under a clear protective dome

Roof turrets

Two turrets on the ends of the roof ridge, each a pan-tilt head under a clear dome. Between them they cover a full ring of ground around the house.

Portable solar pole unit

A standalone unit with its own solar panel and battery, on a ground screw or tripod base. It breaks down into sections to carry to wherever the gulls are.

Close-up render of the earlier pole-unit laser head design: a pan-tilt mount under a clear dome

Built for the outdoors

Industrial weatherproof housings, LiFePO4 batteries and solar charging, with the camera and the safety interlocks wired in from the start. The pole prototype's laser head is moving from the dome shown here to a sealed camera-style housing with a flat window and a sun visor, turning on a pan bearing.

Case study · the Poop Island field test

Where it started: an island the gulls took

Greenfield Island is about 1.8 acres in the Manistique Lakes, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It's owned by Todd Pierantoni, who bought it and hasn't been able to enjoy it since, because of the gulls.

Ring-billed and herring gulls made it theirs, and the island earned the nickname Poop Island. It's Flap Off's first install: the system was built to give the island back, and that's where it is being tested through 2026 and 2027.

We'll measure, not guess. Here's the plan:

3D model of Greenfield Island: a small wooded island with the house at the south end and the two roof turrets' ground coverage zones drawn on the land — 3D model of Greenfield Island and the two roof turrets' coverage, kept on land.

Baseline, lasers off
Count the gulls on the island with the lasers off, to know what normal looks like.
Lasers on, counted daily
Run the system and count every day with automated AI gull counts from the camera (planned).
Compare before and after
Publish the before-and-after numbers here, whatever they show.

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Results

Results coming in 2027 as counts come in. No numbers are shown until real counts exist.

Baseline gulls per day (lasers off)Pending

Gulls per day (lasers on)Pending

ChangePending

Questions

Can I buy one?

Not yet. Flap Off is an experimental prototype in field testing, not a product for sale. It isn't certified and the results aren't proven. Join the list below to hear how the test goes.

Does it hurt the gulls?

No. The beam is never aimed at birds. It sweeps the ground, and the gulls choose to leave. Gulls are protected, and the system is designed to haze them without harm.

What kind of laser would a commercial version use?

A future commercial version would use Class 3B lasers only, with all of the safety layers above.

Get updates

Join the waitlist, follow the test

Nothing is for sale yet. We'll email when there's Flap Off news: the first counts from Poop Island, the results, and if a version ever becomes available.