TITLE: New Technologies To Deter Wildlife Away 

 From Airports and Aircraft 



GOAL: Develop and evaluate methods and 

 technologies for reducing the risks of 

 wildlife strikes to civil aviation and provide 

 scientifically valid methods and techniques 

 to be used on airfields to manage hazardous 

 wildlife. 



In order to be certified for commercial passenger 

 traffic by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration 

 (FAA), many U.S. airports are required to develop 

 and implement a wildlife hazard-management plan. 

 The FAA strongly discourages any management 

 practice that might increase wildlife in the vicinity 

 of an airport. NWRC's research is focused on 

 understanding the nature of wildlife hazards at 

 airports, developing management tools to reduce 

 those hazards, and providing WS and airport 

 personnel with information on the latest strategies 

 for controlling wildlife hazards. 



Validation of Avian Radar To Detect and Track 

 Birds — In a multiagency effort, researchers from 

 NWRC's Ohio field station, WS Operations, the 

 FAA, the U.S. Department of the Navy, academia, 

 and industry joined together to validate the ability 

 of digital avian radar systems to accurately detect 

 and track birds hazardous to aviation on three 

 U.S. military airfields. Their results confirm that 

 these new radar systems provide an accurate and 

 valuable tool to monitor bird movements on and 

 near airfields. Knowledge of avian movements 

 allows biologists to alter environmental attractants 

 that bring birds into the proximity of aircraft. A 

 second objective of the research is to develop 

 an integrated representation of networked radar 

 systems. This efforf will allow wildlife biologists to 

 view a composite representation of multiple radar 

 systems positioned at various locations on an 

 airfield, rather than viewing the individual displays 

 of each radar. 



WS employees, the FAA, and other agencies work to validate the accuracy of digital avian radar systems. Visual confirmation of 

 avian targets detected by the radar helps verify that these new radar systems are capable of detecting and tracking bird movements 

 on and near airfields. (NWRC photo by Brian E. Washburn.) 



8 Developing Methods 



