FAA Fact Sheet |
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Wildlife Hazard Mitigation Requirements and ProgramsAlso available here>The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 139 establishes requires commercial service airports to maintain a safe operation. This includes conducting wildlife Hazard Assessments and preparing a Wildlife Hazard Management Plan, if necessary. Wildlife Hazard Mitigation RequirementsAirports sponsors are responsible for ensuring their airport maintains a safe operating environment, Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 139.
Wildlife AssessmentAs specified in Advisory Circular (AC) 150/5200-33B, section 1-4, requires consideration of wildlife attractants within 10,000 feet of the airport. It also recommends consideration of wildlife attractants out to five statute (statute mile is 5,280 feet) miles of the airport if the attractant could cause hazardous wildlife movement into or across the approach or departure airspace. The assessment considers:
Wildlife Hazard Management PlanAC 150/5200-33B – Hazardous Wildlife Attractants on or Near Airports and the FAA Airports Wildlife Manual provides guidance on what should be in the Wildlife Hazard Management Plan The plan should:
Typical Wildlife Mitigation TechniquesHabitat Modification
Wildlife Harassment Tools
FAA Bird Strike DatabaseSince 1990, the FAA has collected voluntary bird strike reports and maintained a bird strike database. The database is managed by Wildlife Services Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture under terms of an interagency agreement with FAA. Strike reports are sent to Wildlife Services where they are edited and entered into the database. Embry-Riddle University maintains the public FAA website for the bird strike data. Currently the database has 106,604 records from January 1990 through August 2008. The increasing number of bird strikes is a combination of better reporting and increasing bird populations. The database is available to airport operators and safety analysts and is extremely useful for which species are most involved in strikes, seasonal patterns, and extent and type of damage from strikes. The FAA has contracted with the Smithsonian Institute to analyze bird remains in their feather laboratory to determine the species. Several years ago, the FAA purchased a DNA analyzer to improve the capability of the laboratory. Airports can mail small remains from bird strikes to the feather laboratory at the Smithsonian. The laboratory analyzes the remains to determine the species of bird. The species information is returned to the airport and the FAA. Species information is useful for the airports to consider appropriate mitigation measures. FAA provides $265,000 per year from AIP Administrative funds to maintain the bird strike database, the web site, and the feather identification at the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian portion is about $80,000. FAA Wildlife Hazard Mitigation Research ProgramThe FAA wildlife research funding (in thousands of dollars) history is:
The wildlife research is conducted by FAA Technical Center at Atlantic City, U. S. Department of Agriculture National Wildlife Research Facility, Sandusky Ohio, and University of Illinois Center of Excellence in Airport Technology. Wildlife research falls into the following categories: Habitat Modification
Harassment Techniques
Bird Radar ResearchThis research was started in 2000. The goal is to determine if low cost radars can reliably detect birds at or near (three to possibly five miles) to airports and be used to develop an airport bird strike advisory system. The radar data is overlayed on an airport geographic information system. The information could be displayed at the airports operation center or possibly in the aircraft cockpit. As many airports routinely have birds in the area, we do not yet know if this system would be capable of providing alerts that would be operationally suitable for making specific decisions on landing or takeoff. It may be of most use for airport operators to manage their wildlife control programs. The research is continuing to address these operational type issues. We are conducting radar evaluations currently with two Bird Radar systems at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, two Bird Radar systems at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor, WA, and one Portable research radar unit that is owned/leased by the University of Illinois (CEAT) currently finishing a brief deployment at YVR (Vancouver, BC Canada). Next StepsWe are planning additional testing at:
Wildlife Hazard ManualResearch results are incorporated into FAA Wildlife Hazard Manual to make available practical control measures to airport operators. FAA Wildlife Hazard Mitigation FundingSince 1997, the FAA has provided approximately $387 million in Airport Improvement Program funds to airports nationwide for projects involving the assessment, planning and mitigation of wildlife hazards. The Fiscal Year 2008 funding provided for these projects totaled approximately $34.5 million. Water Rescue
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