Airplanes and birds

Okay, this may not be the most thoroughly researched or well written blog post but I HAVE to respond to something I heard said today regarding birds and airplanes (ethno-ornithology is EVERYWHERE!!!).

"Bird strikes" are when birds, often flocks of birds, collide with aircrafts. Somehow the phrasing makes it sound (to me) like the strikes are blamed on the birds. My understanding of said strikes is that the birds don't hear the airplane coming, the plane is moving faster than the birds or the birds don't know what the airplane is and how it can affect them (they didn't invent airplanes after all) and are kind of sucked into the propellers and whatnot. January 15, 2009 US Airways flight #1549 crash landed on the Hudson River shortly after striking a flock of Canada Geese after taking off from LaGuardia airport in New York. I mention this incident because I have heard it discussed many times this month, two years after this particular bird strike incident. The discussion that I heard today mentioned that bird strikes are up because of population increases in birds weighing over eight pounds.

According to Richard Dolbeer, of the USDA National Wildlife Research Center in Sandusky, Ohio, 13 of the 14 species of birds that weigh over eight pounds and nest in North America, are on the rise. The reason for these increases is surmised to be due to stronger environmental regulations, conservation efforts, land-use changes and urban acclimation by some bird species. Increases in these populations is a good sign and in many instances a sign of environmental health.

Many (if not all) airports hire companies, like Birdstrike Control Program, to assist with keeping bird populations on airport grounds at bay. These non-lethal methods of protecting birds (okay, I acknowledge that the birds are not the airports' priority it is human lives and money they are trying to protect) are clever and preferable to lethal methods. I particularly enjoy the border collie and falconry options.

Finally, the Federal Aviation Administration has a Wildlife Strike Database that is interesting, while being concurrently horrifying (the have pictures of bird strikes on their page). There is a great deal of information available online about making airplanes that can withstand bird strikes and not have engines that fail. Currently, airplane engines can withstand varying levels of bird strikes, based on the number of birds, the size of birds or some combination of both. Interestingly enough a plane engine's ability to not be destroyed if it encounters a flock of birds is called its ability to digest birds. Thus, most plane engines today can handle "digesting" four pound birds. For some reason I find this terminology repugnant.

Now for the personal opinion stuff...I cannot BELIEVE (or maybe I can) that there is so much information about airplanes that have experienced bird strikes but very little about the birds themselves. I can't understand how there aren't more people interested in finding ways to alert birds to the oncoming aircrafts. The pictures I've seen are not only disgusting but heart wrenching, disturbing and sad. I want to scoop up the bird's parts and bury them. Or say some sort of prayer for the thousands of birds that are killed annually in a rather gruesome way. I understand that people like to fly because it saves time. I have never really enjoyed flying and I must say that after reading all of this information I don't see myself flying any time soon. I'd rather drive. Or take the train, which I acknowledge likely have their own wildlife strike problems...




Associated Press. NTSB confirms birds in engines of US Airways plane ditched in Hudson. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/ntsb_confirms_birds_in_engines.html. Updated February 4, 2009. Accessed January 31, 2011.

Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Canada_Goose/id. Updated 2009. Accessed January 31, 2011.

Dolbeer, Richard A. Population Increases of Large Bird Species in Relation to Impact Standards for Aircraft Engines and Airframes. 2002. USDA National Wildlife Research Center. Available at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1147&context=icwdm_usdanwrc. Accessed January 31, 2011.

Federal Aviation Commition. FAA Wildlife Strike Database. http://wildlife-mitigation.tc.faa.gov/wildlife/default.aspx. Updated February 18, 2010. Accessed January 31, 2011.