Center, Internet, Wildlife Damage Management
Human–Wildlife Interactions
Wildlife Risk to Aviation: A Multi-scale Issue Requires a Multi-scale Solution
Date of this Version
Fall 2011
Document Type
Article
Citation
Human–Wildlife Interactions (Fall 2011) 5(2): article 7
doi: 10.26077/ph6x-4v32
Special topic: Bird strikes
Abstract
Aircraft collisions with birds and other wildlife (wildlife strikes) pose increasing safety and financial concerns to the aviation industry worldwide. Recent events such as the ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River have renewed public interest in risks to aircraft posed by wildlife. However, wildlife biologists and aviation personnel have been aware of these issues for decades. Since the inception of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) National Wildlife Strike Database in 1990, 99,411 reported wildlife strikes to airplanes have resulted in at least $1.2 billion annually in losses (direct and indirect) to civil aviation worldwide and >$625 million annually in the United States, as well as >200 human lives lost.
. . .
A primary goal of any habitat management or land-use change in the context of aviation is to reduce strike hazards. Management beyond the airport boundary is a very difficult task, but not impossible. Creative approaches to affecting land-use change beyond the airport boundary do exist and should be explored. For example, cost-share or other incentives could be provided to agricultural producers to convert to other crop types within a defined zone around airports. Economic incentives will alter land use, provided that just compensation is supplied to off set direct and opportunity costs. Numerous conservation programs provide incentives to induce adoption of practices that address specific resource concerns and produce broader societal benefits, including biofuel production, soil erosion reduction, water quality enhancement, and wildlife population restoration. In many cases, eligibility for these practices is geographically restricted to increase programmatic efficiency; proximity to airports could provide criteria for practice eligibility and ranking. Also, cooperative wildlife management between airports and surrounding land owners could reduce strike risk while concurrently reducing crop and property depredation. We as biologists, airport managers, planners, and others should continue to work together to explore possible solutions to manage the larger airport landscape effectively.
Comments
United States government work. Public domain