From alligators to whales, wildlife a worry for airports
Keeping runways clear of hazards a big concern
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, delayed a Spirit Airlines flight on its way to the gate and became a viral sensation on Twitter. Yet 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 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.
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 homes on 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.
Portland International Airport in Oregon, located along a Pacific migratory flight path for birds, has an 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.
No matter what airports do to keep animals off property and away from airplanes, wildlife happens.
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 came upon a 450-pound bearded seal lounging on the runway.
“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.