Bird Strike Committee
Best
Management Practices
For
Airport Wildlife Control
Adapted by the
Steering Committee of Bird Strike Committee-USA from
Standards For Aerodrome Bird/Wildlife Control
developed by
International Bird Strike Committee
Principal Compiler
Ed
Cleary
Federal
Aviation Administration
Staff
Wildlife Biologist
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Contents
2. BSC-USA
Best Management Practices
2.1 Airport
Wildlife Hazard Management
2.2 Active
Wildlife Control on the Airport
2.2.2 Aircraft
flight schedule modification
2.3.2 Collaboration
and coordination between organizations on the airport
2.4.4 Trained
predators (raptors and dogs)
2.5 Logging
Wildlife Management Activities
2.6.2 Definition
of a wildlife strike
2.6.3 Analysis
of wildlife strike data
2.6.4 Wildlife
remains identification
2.6.5 Data
required in a wildlife strike report
4. Summary
of BSC-USA Best Management Practices for Airport Wildlife Control
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Delegates to the 26th International Birdstrike
Committee (IBSC) meeting[1]
recommended developing a set of standards or best management practices for the
control of hazardous wildlife on airports.
Dr. John Allan, Central Science Laboratory,
Dr. Allan presented IBSC’s recommended best management practices to the
delegates at the 8th joint meeting of Bird Strike Committee
A modified version of IBSC’s recommended best management practices
follows. The changes include
“Americanizing” some of the phraseology and spellings and adapting the best
management practices to meet conditions existent in the
Several excellent
handbooks exist that describe techniques used to manage the wildlife strike
risk on airports (for example, CAA 1998, Transport Canada 2001, ACI 2005,
Cleary and Dolbeer 2005). However, there
has been little effort to quantify the investment in time, personnel,
equipment, and training needed to manage wildlife hazards effectively. This contrasts sharply with other airport
safety requirements. For example, U.S.
Federal regulations specify the required number and size of aircraft rescue and
firefighting equipment and the quantity of firefighting agents (Title
14 Code of Federal Regulations, part 139.317) (14 CFR, part
139.317) as well as the operational requirements (14 CFR, part 139.319). This inconsistency has arisen in part because
the habitat types, the wildlife species present, and the levels of risk caused
by wildlife vary widely among airports.
The precise techniques that are successful at one site might not work at
another. The situation is further
aggravated by the differences in resources available at each airport and the
attitudes of airport managers and air carriers.
The International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) revised
Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS) on airport wildlife control became
effective in November 2003. ICAO is
updating the guidance material that accompanies the SARPS. This guidance will, when combined with the
various manuals listed above, provide the technical detail needed to set up a
wildlife control program. It does not,
however, describe the levels of effort needed to conduct an efficient and
successful program.
This document identifies universally applicable practices. It suggests levels of airport habitat
management, wildlife control equipment, personnel, and other resource that
BSC-USA believes an airport needs to manage the wildlife aircraft strike risk
effectively. The best management
practices will give airport managers, state and national regulators, the
insurance industry, lawyers, and other interested people information about what
BSC-USA believes should be the minimum investment in wildlife control at an
airport.
BSC-USA believes these standards should apply to any airport
certificated under 14 CFR, part 139 to serve scheduled and unscheduled air
carrier operations. Airports with
unusually high wildlife strike risks should invest more resources in strike
prevention than the minimum described below.
BSC-USA recognizes that many reliever and general aviation airports are
too small to justify the expense of wildlife control at the levels described in
this document; nonetheless, these airports need to be aware of wildlife hazards
and have management plans in place.
This document distills the collective experience of wildlife and
aviation experts into a set of basic management practices the aviation industry
can use. No attempt is made to provide a detailed scientific underpinning for
the best management practices. Those
wishing to explore the science involved should review the scientific literature
and the proceedings of organizations such as IBSC (www.int-birdstrike.com), Bird Strike
Committee
Controlling an airport’s attractiveness to wildlife is fundamental to good wildlife control. It is more important than wildlife population management for controlling the overall risk. If an airport provides easily accessible resources to wildlife—food, water, shelter, or breeding sites—the wildlife will continue trying to return despite any strategies used to discourage them. The control program will fail unless the airport is made as unattractive to wildlife as possible.
Habitat management to deter wildlife involves two steps: (1) identifying the attractive features and (2) imposing changes to either remove the attraction or to deny wildlife access to it. Habitat management, such as improving drainage, installing fences, and changing vegetation cover, is often expensive. It can also be difficult to get resources for programs such as vegetation management that may take years to carry out, especially when the immediate benefits are not always clear. Long-term commitment from senior management is essential. A named member of the airport’s senior management staff should have responsibility for ensuring implementation of all parts of the wildlife hazard management program. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved Wildlife Hazard Management Plan must identify airport personnel with responsibility for carrying out various parts of the plan (14 CFR 139.337(f) (1)).
Best management practice 1 – Airport Managers:
Assign a senior airport management staff member responsibility for
carrying out all parts of the wildlife control program.
Best management practice 2 – Airport Managers:
Take part in local planning and land use decisions for proposed land
development or land use changes within 5 miles of the airport that could
attract hazardous wildlife.
Most wildlife aircraft strikes occur on the airport, so the logical place to begin looking for wildlife attractants, and setting up control programs, is on the airport. Available food (invertebrates, small mammals, seeds, fruits, nuts, or plants), water (ponds, ditches, or puddles on the tarmac), shelter (nesting sites, trees, bushes, or buildings), or the security offered by large open spaces will attract wildlife to an airport. Sometimes it might be obvious what is attracting the wildlife. In other cases, it might not be obvious. The attraction will vary from one species to another. Where doubts exist, get help from a professional wildlife management biologist who is able to identify wildlife attractants on and near the airport.
Do not limit wildlife hazard assessments and wildlife management programs to the airport property. ICAO recognizes the need to control hazardous wildlife attractants near airports, as well. In 2003, ICAO published new standards on airport wildlife control[4]. The new standards state the following:
The
appropriate authority shall take action to eliminate or to prevent the
establishment of garbage disposal dumps or any such other source attracting
wildlife activity on, or in the vicinity of, an aerodrome unless an appropriate
aeronautical study indicates that they are unlikely to create conditions conducive
to a wildlife hazard problem (Amendment 5, Annex 14,
Volume 1, Chapter 9, §9.4.4).
In the
Best management practice 3 – Airport Managers:
Conduct a wildlife hazard assessment to identify land use practices and
geographic features on and near the airport attractive to hazardous wildlife.
Four basic control strategies are available to solve wildlife problems on airports:
Integrate all four control strategies into the airport’s wildlife hazard management plan, as appropriate.
Although not generally practical for regularly scheduled commercial traffic on larger airports, flight schedule adjustments might be possible in some situations. Such changes can lessen the chance of a strike with a wildlife species that has a predictable pattern of movement.
Habitat modification means changing the environment to make it less attractive or inaccessible to the problem wildlife. After identifying hazardous wildlife attractants on or near the airport, develop a management plan to either remove, reduce in quantity, or deny wildlife access to them, depending on the circumstances at the airport. All airports are different. The wildlife species attracted to them will vary from region to region. Therefore, it is not possible to define precisely what types of habitat management will be effective at a particular site. Typical examples include stopping agricultural activity on or near the airport[5], manipulating the species and/or height of the airport’s AOA ground cover, removing trees and bushes, eliminating or netting water bodies, excluding wildlife from buildings by netting or other means, and selecting nonattractive planting around terminals. Regardless of the techniques used, airport managers should assess the wildlife attractions on and near the airport and develop a habitat management plan to reduce these attractions to the extent practicable.
Repellent and harassment techniques are designed to make the area or resource wanted by wildlife unattractive or to make the wildlife uncomfortable or fearful. Effective wildlife control requires dispersal of even small numbers of hazardous wildlife as soon as possible from the airport. This stops them from becoming an attraction to other wildlife. Their presence suggests there is food or water available or the airport is a safe place to rest. For these reasons, rapid detection of hazardous wildlife followed by quick dis