Portugal’s Institute for Nature Conservation and Forest conducted a study in order to find how nocturnal olive harvesting could affect bird species. The study concluded that this harvesting system is dangerous for protected bird species that live in the olives.

The lights and the noise produced by the harvesting machines can negatively affect the species that are not able to escape during nigh time since most of the species are diurnal.

Not just birds were being affected by nocturnal olive harvesting, diurnal rodents were also being killed by this harvesting system.

It is illegal to kill any type of wild species for nocturnal or diurnal harvesting, according to the ICNF study. ICNF stated in a note that will intensify enforcement action between October of this year and March 20 “in order to ensure that there is no practice that can promote bird mortality, namely the nightly olive harvest.”

Farming organisations agreed to suspend the olive harvesting to “further study the potential impact of the night harvest on local biodiversity.”