Airport Wildlife Management

AIRPORT WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

AIRPORT WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING

(CAR 302.201-302.206)

BULLETIN #31-SUMMER-2002

EDITOR’S NOTE:

In previous bulletins, we have discussed the addition of a Wildlife Management and Planning regulation to the Canadian Aviation Regulations, Subpart 2-Airports. As discussed in Bulletin #30, Information Update-2002, the process of introducing the regulation was interrupted by the events associated with September 11. It is our expectation that the process will be completed by the end of this year. In order to provide as much assistance as possible to those airport operators required to comply with the new regulation, this bulletin and the next will be devoted to providing practical advice on conducting risk assessments and developing management plans.

DEFINITIONS:

In Bulletin #24, Planning Wildlife Control, we stated that the purpose of wildlife management planning was “to reduce the potential risks to aviation caused by bird and mammal activities on and in the vicinity of an airport.” The new regulation is performance-based, and requires the development of management plans that include risk assessments prepared in Q850 or equivalent format. Therefore the intent of the regulation is consistent with the current Transport Canada approach to self assessment and Safety Management Systems (SMS). In SMS, risk management is defined as “a proactive activity that looks at the risks associated with identified hazards and assists in selecting actions to maintain an appropriate level of safety when faced with these hazards.” Before we can begin to assess risk and identify mitigation activities , we must understand the difference between a hazard and risk:

• A hazard is a condition with the potential of causing injury to personnel, damage to equipment or structures, loss of material, or reduction of the ability to perform a prescribed function. In the context of wildlife control, a hazard would be a flock of Canada Geese feeding on airfield grass.

• A risk is the chance of injury or loss. This concept includes both the likelihood of a loss and the magnitude. In the wildlife control context, risk is the obvious severity associated with an accident when probability has increased to the point where a passenger carrying aircraft is lost to the exposure provided by the flock of Canada Geese on the airfield.

As described in Bulletin #28, Sharing the Skies, airport operators, because of their ability to manage wildlife through science-based planning, are in a key position to reduce:

1.Exposure to wildlife hazards

2.The probability of striking wildlife, and

3.The severity of a strike when it occurs.

There are seven steps in the Q850 process as it pertains to TC Civil Aviation:

1.Initiate the process

2.Perform preliminary analysis

3.Estimate risk

4.Evaluate the risk activity

5.Control risk

6.Take action

7.Monitor impact

We can never eliminate the risk associated with collisions between aircraft and wildlife, but hazard identification and a systems approach to risk management will provide the information needed to maintain acceptable risk levels.

Now that we have established a framework for complying with the regulatory requirement, we can follow the Q850 process and place them in a wildlife management context.

Step 1: Now is the time to develop a shopping list for documents and data that you will need to conduct your risk assessment. The following list includes some of the resources that may support your work:

• Internet resources that provide information on wildlife studies within your region.
• Municipal government offices may have useful information on the location of landfills and other facilities that attract birds.
• 1:50,000 topographical maps or aviation VNC charts may provide the location of landfills, wildlife refuges, parks etc.
• Provincial ministries of the environment and/or natural resources may be able to provide reports that contain valuable data on wildlife populations, movements and trends.
• Your nearest Canadian Wildlife Service office may have useful reports and staff who can assist your work.
• Regional natural history clubs may have comprehensive wildlife inventories derived from activities such as Christmas Bird Counts and local birders’ lists.
• Municipal libraries may contain resource material that will provide a foundation for an ecological study. Also, university, college or community college libraries may have useful documents.
• TC’s posters on bird identification and commercially available field guides will assist you in identifying the species of birds that are common in your area.
• Transport Canada and several consulting firms have conducted bird hazard studies at many Canadian airports, and you may be able to obtain this information from your TC Regional Office.
• Bird strike data can be obtained from TC or online, or you may have complete airport records that will give a historical perspective on hazardous wildlife species.

• Transport Canada’s book, Sharing the Skies will provide a strategic overview of management planning related to wildlife hazards.

Most major airports will want to hire a consultant with considerable experience in bird hazard issues to conduct their risk assessment; if for no other reason than to validate the data that you have obtained from other sources. Smaller airports may be able to establish terms of reference for an honours or graduate student looking for a thesis subject, and obtain their data at a lower cost. However you choose to conduct your risk management initiative, a thorough search of available resources may reward you with a wealth of useful data.

Step 2: A preliminary review of existing documents should provide a focus for your work. Bird strike data can reveal the species most frequently involved in collisions with aircraft, as well as the times of year, month and day when incidents most frequently occur. If a serious damaging wildlife incident has occurred at your airport, the records related to the event will provide pertinent data for a risk assessment. Interviews with stakeholders such as pilots and airline flight operations staff may provide additional data that will highlight specific issues that should be addressed in a management plan. These interviews will ensure that the stakeholder analysis requirements of Q850 are being met.

Step 3: Assessing the risk associated with wildlife management and planning consists of blending data from an ecological study with those from an aviation study, and assessing how the wildlife activity identified in the ecological study will impact on the aircraft operations identified in the aviation study. As defined in bulletin #24, an ecological study is “an inventory of birds and mammals on and near an aerodrome that includes: identification of species, numbers, locations and their local, daily and seasonal movements; a description of the location and features on and near the aerodrome that attract wildlife.” The fact that the new regulation applies to facilities that handle passenger carrying commercial aircraft highlights the fact that turbine powered passenger carrying aircraft are considered to be most vulnerable to collisions with wildlife. Estimating risk is not an exact science, and each airport operator may wish to modify these guidelines to suit their specific requirements. However, a history of damaging events involving commercial passenger carrying aircraft at any airport is a strong indication that there is considerable risk associated with the species of birds or mammals that were involved.

Knowing which species of bird or mammal pose the greatest risk is key to the successful completion of a risk assessment. Bulletin #26, Most Hazardous Species, discusses the need for creating a list that creates a relative hazard score for each species. You can use the following list, or make site-specific modifications:

1.Deer (all species)

2.Geese (all species)

3.Gulls (all species)

4.Hawks (all species)

5.Ducks (all species)

6.Coyotes

7.Owls (all species)

8.Rock Doves (pigeon)

9.Eagles (bald and golden)

10.Sandhill Cranes

11.Sparrows/Snow Buntings

12.Shorebirds

13.Blackbirds/Starlings

14.Crows/Ravens

15.Swallows

16.Mourning Doves

17.Herons (all species)

18.Vultures (turkey)

19.American Kestrels

Although simplistic, this list provides a useful framework for prioritizing and directing actions to mitigate wildlife hazards. You may wish to quantify the risk associated with each species on the list, and one way to do this is to use the framework that was established by LGL Ltd. in May of 2002 titled Bird Use, Bird Hazard Risk Assessment, and Design of Appropriate Bird Hazard Zoning Criteria for Lands Surrounding the Pickering Airport Site. In their report, the study team classified birds from level 1 to level 6, with level 1 birds presenting the greatest risk to aircraft. Level 1 birds are those that weigh 1.8 kg or more, and are very large flocking birds. Level 6 birds are very small, solitary birds that present minimal risk to aircraft. Following are examples of how the LGL Ltd. team prioritized and classified species for the Pickering Airport Site:

Level 1: Canada Goose

Level 2: Great Blue Heron

Turkey Vulture

Bald Eagle

Mallard

Black Duck

Great Black-backed Gull

Herring Gull

Level 3: Red-tailed Hawk

Ring-billed Gull

Rock Dove

American Crow

Level 4: Cooper’s Hawk

Northern Harrier

Mourning Dove

European Starling

Red-winged Blackbird

Common Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

Level 5: Sharp-shinned Hawk

American Kestrel

Killdeer

Eastern Meadowlark

Snow Bunting

House Sparrow

Migrating Sparrows

Level 6: Many passerine species

When conducting your risk assessment, it is important to keep in mind that the goal is to initiate a systems approach to reducing the exposure, probability and severity associated with collisions between aircraft and wildlife.The regulation identifies which aircraft types are vulnerable, and by using the above lists, we can identify the hazardous species at any particular airport. By creating a prioritized list, you can ensure that your management plan is focused on those species that present the greatest risk to aircraft. As discussed in Bulletin #26 Most Hazardous Species, ensure that actions taken to control a less hazardous species do not create an attraction for a highly hazardous species.

Step 4: Evaluating risk activity consists of determining whether you have a means to manage the risk associated with the factors that you have identified in step 3. For example, the birds that are most frequently involved in bird strike incidents at your airport may be gulls that are migrating through the airspace surrounding the airport on their twice daily flights to and from a landfill feeding site and their night roosts. You have no direct means of controlling these birds unless they stop at your airport, and the only available solution might be to work towards convincing the landfill operators to initiate a comprehensive bird control program at their site. On the other hand, if your analysis determines that Canada Geese are regularly feeding on airfield grass, and have been involved in a number of serious strikes, then you can exercise the provisions of your Canadian Wildlife Service permit and initiate an aggressive dispersal or lethal control program. It is at this stage that you will want to determine whether animal welfare groups may oppose any action you have planned, and you may wish to initiate a consultation process. The evaluation of risk activity sets the stage for the development of your management plan.

Step 5: Controlling risk is defined as the management-planning phase. This phase will be much easier than you might think, because much of the work has been done for you. Transport Canada, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Federal Aviation Administration have all produced excellent manuals that describe state-of-the-art techniques and products for airport wildlife control. These manuals are available in electronic or hard copy format, and provide the tools that will enable you to fully describe the control actions that you plan to take. (should we include websites?) Once you have your prioritized list of wildlife species in place, you can simply cut the appropriate sections from the manuals, and use that information to describe how you plan to mitigate the risk associated with hazardous wildlife at your airport.

The more difficult part of writing your management plan will be describing how you plan to resource the identified action items. It will be a challenge to determine whether existing staff can fulfill the requirements of the regulation, or whether a contractor can provide a more cost-effective solution. In many cases, once the risk assessment has been completed, you may realize that there are specific and limited times when risk is high. If you use airport staff to conduct wildlife control activities during those high-risk periods, you may find that you can minimize risk in a cost-effective manner.

Step 6: Now is the time to put down the books and begin implementing the actions described in your management plan. If your risk assessment has identified Herring Gulls as the highest threat, and if your analysis has shown that these birds rest on your airfield early in the morning on their way to a landfill, then you should plan to have bird control officers on duty at first light in order to disperse the gulls before they become comfortable. If your risk assessment has shown that many of the damaging events occur at night, then you should schedule bird control activities during those hours. You may have found that because of the limited number of operations involving vulnerable aircraft during certain times of the year, your best course of action is to schedule bird control activities 30 minutes prior to the takeoff or landing of these scheduled flights. The management planning stage provides an opportunity to rationalize risk and dedicate scarce resources in a cost-effective manner.

Step 7: The final stage of the Q850 process is to develop a monitoring system. All bird and mammal strikes should be recorded in order to establish trends and improve upon your management planning work. All wildlife activity on the airport should be recorded, and whenever wildlife is dispersed, the techniques used and effects of the action should be recorded to ensure that the program is effective. Any changes in the environment at and around the airport should be monitored and recorded in order to ensure that hazards are not being created. Your monitoring program will enable you to conduct the self-assessment that is part of the Q850 process. By analyzing your monitoring reports, you can determine whether the resources expended on your wildlife control program are being effectively used. It will also enable you to validate the conclusions that have been made during the risk assessment phase of the process.

It is our hope that the preceding guidance material will assist you in your efforts to comply with the new Wildlife Management and Planning regulation. You may wish to review some of the material described below under Additional Reading in order to better understand the risk management process as it relates to wildlife hazards. Software is available for data collection, monitoring and analysis. TC is working with the private sector to produce software that will enable you to develop risk assessments and management plans on a personal computer. Information related to this software can be obtained from Winfield Solutions at:

In bulletin #31 we will work through the management planning process for several generic airports.

Additional Reading

Canada. Transport Canada. “Information Update 2002.” Airport Wildlife Management. Bulletin No. 30. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 2002.

Canada. Transport Canada. “Most Hazardous Species.” Airport Wildlife Management. Bulletin No. 26. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 2000.

Canada. Transport Canada. “Planning Wildlife Control.” Airport Wildlife Management. Bulletin No. 24. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 1999.

Canada. Transport Canada. Risk Management and Decision-Making in Civil Aviation TP 13095. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 2001.

Canada. Transport Canada. Safety Management Systems for Flight Operations and Aircraft Maintenance Organizations TP 13881. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 2002.

Canada. Transport Canada. Sharing the Skies TP 13549. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 2001.

Canada. Transport Canada. “Sharing the Skies.” Airport Wildlife Management. Bulletin No. 28. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 2001.

Canada. Transport Canada. Wildlife Control Procedures Manual TP 11500. Ottawa: Transport Canada, 2002.

Cleary, E. and R. Dolbeer. Wildlife Management at Airports. United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services. Washington, D.C.: Federal Aviation Administration/ U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1999.

Hygnstrom, S.E., R.M. Timm and G.E. Larson, eds. Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage. United States. Department of Agriculture. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Animal Damage Control. Great Plains Agricultural Council Wildlife Committee. University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension. 2 volumes. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska, 1994.

Davis, R.A., Kelly, T.F., Sowden, R.J., Lang, A.L. Bird Use, Bird Hazard Risk Assessment, and Design of Appropriate Bird Hazard Zoning Criteria for LandsSurrounding the Pickering Airport Site. Canada. LGL Limited, Environmental Research Associates. King City, ON, 2002.

Reason, James. Human Error. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Reason, James. Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1997.

For more information contact:

Bruce MacKinnon

Wildlife Control Specialist

Transport Canada, Safety and Security (AARMB)

Aerodrome Safety Branch

7C, Place de Ville

Ottawa, Ontario

K1A 0N8