Wildlife can prove to be a real pest for airports
Keeping runways clear a constant challenge.
In June, a large alligator was caught on tape sauntering across a taxiway as it made its way between ponds at Orlando International Airport in Florida.
The gator’s journey alarmed passengers, slightly delayed a Spirit Airlines flight on its way to the gate and became a viral sensation on Twitter. But airport spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell said that with about 230 of the airport’s more than 13,000 acres covered in water, wildlife visitors are not rare.
“For that reason, we have a biologist and wildlife unit on staff to help with planning new facilities, monitoring and relocating, when needed, various ‘critters’ on our property,” Fennell said.
Like Orlando International, other U.S. airports must manage resident and visiting wildlife because (mostly) birds, deer, alligators, coyote, moose and even an excess of worms on the runway after a rain (a feast for birds) can create safety hazards that lead to costly and, in some same cases, deadly collisions between aircraft and animals.
A report from the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that in
2015 alone wildlife strikes would ding the U.S. civil aviation industry about
$229 million in direct costs and require more than 69,000 hours of aircraft downtime. But despite lingering memories of the 2009 bird strike near New York’s LaGuardia Airport that led to the “Miracle on the Hudson,” Cody Baciuska of Loomacres Wildlife Management says “Passengers should not be concerned about experiencing a strike the next time they fly.”
His confidence comes from the fact that airports are aggressive about managing and monitoring wildlife and continually network with each other about best practices for deploying a wide variety of tools that include everything from visual and auditory deterrents, fencing, netting and spikes to lasers and all manner of pyrotechnics.
In 1999, Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers was the first airport to add a border collie to its wildlife management team to help shoo away birds that might otherwise nest and roost on airport property. (The current dog is named Echo; previous ones were Jet, Radar, Sky and Aero.) In 2007, Seattle-Tacoma International was the world’s first airport to install an avian radar system to monitor potentially hazardous bird activity near the airport.
Elsewhere, airports are teaming with airlines, Audubon International, community volunteers and others to humanely trap, relocate and resettle raptors such as hawks, ospreys and owls.
On the East Coast, United Airlines, Audubon International and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey work together to trap American kestrels (a climate-threatened small falcon) at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and send them to new homes on area golf courses with more welcoming habitats.
Each year Seattle-Tacoma International carefully collects and relocates fuzzy baby chicks from the nests of resident red-tailed hawks.
“We actually climb the trees and take the chicks out of the nest and take them up north where we raise them to imprint on a different location,” said Mikki Viehoever, wildlife biologist for the Port of Seattle.
Portland International Airport in Oregon, located on the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers and along a Pacific migratory flight path for birds, has a very active raptor translocation program.
“Trapped raptors are taken to suitable release sites in Oregon and Washington by car or plane,” said Nick Atwell, wildlife manager for the Port of Portland. “We’ve partnered with Alaska Airlines for transport to northern Washington with the intent of increasing the distance from PDX.”
Atwell and his team tag and band each bird they relocate and keep an online database of sightings. “We want to track the success or failure of the program,” Atwell said, “and find out if a bird comes back to the airport and inform other airports what might be the best distance for translocating animals.”
No matter what airports do to keep animals off property and away from airplanes, wildlife happens.
Some airports have special vacuums in their tool sheds or a beekeeper on speed-dial to remove bees that sometimes swarm on airplane wings.
In January 2017, a 15-foot dead whale washed up near the end of a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. “We worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to remove it,” said Laura Francoeur, chief wildlife biologist for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, “because you don’t want to leave a dead whale there to attract scavengers.”
Each year during nesting season for diamondback terrapins, Francoeur and her team monitor the turtles migrating between a nearby wildlife refuge and the shores of Jamaica Bay. In past years, hundreds of turtles marched – slowly – across a runway, causing planes to be delayed. Now plastic barriers keep most of the turtles out of harm’s way, while staff swoop in to gather up and relocate any terrapins that insist on taking the shortcut.
In addition to capturing and relocating alligators – some more than 9 feet long – at some southern airports, wildlife biologists and wildlife technicians from the USDA’s Wildlife Services unit help keep a zoo’s worth of wildlife away from taxiways and runways. Their list includes Nile monitor lizards, pythons, porcupines (whose quills can damage airplane tires) and loons.
“What most people may not know about loons is that they are unable to walk on land,” USDA spokeswoman Tanya Espinosa said. Loons may land on a wet runway believing they’re landing on water and are then unable to get back up. “Our employees have had to physically pick loons up in order to release them,” Espinosa said.
At some coastal airports oysters, clams and other shellfish have become an issue, requiring teams to go out with sweepers.
“During low tides, gulls and other birds go hunting for shellfish and then drop them on open areas, such as runways, to crack them open,” Espinosa said. “While this is a great example of bird ingenuity, it is very dangerous for airports as sharp shell parts can puncture tires, get sucked into engines, damage aircraft and cause accidents.”
In Alaska, USDA wildlife biologists and wildlife technicians help wrangle musk ox and caribou.
Musk ox sometimes form defensive circles on the runways, Espinosa said, and “it can be very time-consuming to get them out of the way.” Several hundred to several thousand caribou sometimes cross runways during migration. “It can be a beautiful sight but also dangerous for human safety and air travel,” he said.
Last year, salmon were spotted swimming across a flood-prone runway at Alaska’s Seward Airport and, after several days of storms, crews clearing snow at the Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport in Utqiagvik (the city formerly known as Barrow) came upon a 450-pound bearded seal lounging on the runway.
The runway is about a quarter-mile from the ocean, but airport staff believe the seal made a mile-long trek around the runway to get to its chosen spot.
“Animal control was called, and they loaded the seal onto a sled and pulled it off the runway with a snow machine,” said Meadow Bailey, spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities. “We refer to this as the day we warned of ‘low sealings’ at the airport.”
Harriet Baskas is a Seattle-based airports and aviation writer and USA TODAY Travel’s “At the Airport” columnist. Follow her at twitter.com/hbaskas.