Annie Get your (gas) GunSIR, - An increasing source of rural noise pollution can be found in the gas guns favoured by some farmers as a means of keeping birds and animals away from crops.
There is a voluntary code to restrict the hours during which these devices may be operated, but few local landowners appear to be willing to observe it. I do not wish to be woken involuntarily at 5am every day of the week neither do I wish my day to be punctuated by loud noises distressingly similar to sounds experienced in Bosnia.
The explosions are intermittent and directional which means that it is impossible to become habituated to them. The disruption of sleep alone presents serious health and human rights issues which are too important to entrust to a voluntary code.
‘SLEEPLESS’,
Whitsomewrites a correspondent to the
BerwickshireHuttonian has every sympathy. It is very disconcerting to go for a peaceful country walk and suddenly,
'boom!', from a field near you. You jump and the crows munch on contentedly. It's worse when you know the devices are all around you and you are waiting for them to dance to their time switch tune-anticipation of the bang is worse than the actuality. Around Hutton they are not a nuisance at night.
I can't vouch for Bosnia nor outside the Green Zone in Baghdad. But the problem is an old one in this country, hence, presumably :
From Ghoulies and Ghosties and things that go bang in the night.
Good Lord Protect usLabels: Gas guns, Merse
