Airport wildlife mitigation team busy during fall migration season

SALT LAKE CITY — While flights take off at the Salt Lake City International Airport, employees like Ron Smith are busy keeping his eyes not on the planes, but on animals.

“I’ve been in aviation for over 20 years I was doing fuel quality control … because I like nature, somebody told me, ‘Hey, why don’t you look at the wildlife program and see what they do?'” Smith said.

For the last five years he’s been an airport operations wildlife specialist with airport’s wildlife mitigation team made up of six people including Smith who work 24/7.

The team is tasked with overseeing all animals that make their way on to airport property. From snakes to porcupines, herds of deer or antelope, even stray dogs or cats.

Alex Blanchard, the teams manager told KSL TV that the program guidelines are overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration’s wildlife hazard management plan.

This photo wasn’t taking at the zoo… this hawk is one of many that fly onto Salt Lake Airport property. A look at the team dedicated to keeping an eye on the animals and the research they do tonight at 5 & 6 @KSL5TV (also no animals were harmed promise) pic.twitter.com/gFnqmKg8tX

— Brianna Chávez (@bri_chavez) November 7, 2024

“It pretty much states what all the hazards are at the airport, how the FAA plans on addressing those hazards, and who is responsible for dealing with those hazards, which is us,” she said.

The team focuses on preventing animals from getting close to the aircrafts. One way is by modifying the airport’s habitat to make it less attractive for animals. In this case, Blanchard said some areas of the airport have certain grass that don’t seed of flower. They also make sure ponding or water is removed to not attract certain birds.

Another way is by “hazing,” using pyrotechnics like sirens, horns, even fireworks to force animals off the property, which Blanchard said is effective. Another measure is population control which includes relocating the animals.

“If we get a lot of mammals on the field, if we get a lot of reptiles, omnivores or snakes, porcupines, other little mammals, rabbits, we relocate them to our wetlands,” Blanchard said.

The most common animal they relocate are birds, especially during the spring and fall migration season. The team makes different traps for different birds that are placed throughout the airport property away from the tarmac in order to prevent bird strikes.

Some traps have a trigger stick the forces the trap shut surrounded by soft netting keeping the bird inside. Another small trap requires the team to place a small rodent like mice inside a small dome protecting it from getting hurt. Thin wires surrounding dome then trap the bird’s feet.

Before the birds are relocated they’re processed which requires them to take down their measurements, from their wing span to their weight, taking it’s picture and add a numbered band on its leg. That information is then put into a national database with the U.S. Geological Survey, which she said makes the their program stronger.

“We really wanted to have a lot more information, not just on the birds that we track, but their patterns and the way they behave, what their movements are,” she said. “It also helps us formulate our plan on the field itself to say migration is coming. (Do) we need to put certain types of traps? (Do) we need to be increasing our inspections? (Do) We need to increase our services so that we have less damage on our aircraft?”

Blanchard said this fall migration, they had more “damaging” bird strikes compared to last year.

“We believe that because winter last year was so wet and a whole bunch of birds were able to survive, there were more birds in the airspace, a lot of birds lived a lot a lot longer, then we got a lot more strikes from big bodied birds.”

While it’s not a program a lot of people think about, Smith said it’s important.

“Birds and planes don’t mix and there’s a lot of birds and a lot of airplanes.”