Airport attempts to empty nests

Beijing airport plans to reduce the possibility of potentially deadly bird strikes on aircraft and prevent harm to the birds themselves by making the area near the runways less attractive to avians as a habitat.

Animal protection activists said they understand the new moves, while believing that there are still better approaches available.

Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) has tried a variety of methods to disperse birds, including using other breeds of predator bird, scaring them off with recordings of other birds, or using bird bombs, which create loud explosions.

Such methods have long been controversial for their potential harm to birds, although it has reduced the risk of a bird strike on a plane to lower than one in 100,000, said Beijing Youth Daily Thursday.

"The previous methods are effective to temporarily disperse them, but the birds living around the airport always come back," an airport staff member told the paper.

Every year from May to September, flocks of birds would settle near the airport, and the pattern had never varied, the employee said.

Staff at BCIA who researched the phenomenon found that the grassy areas near the runways attracts the birds as a source of food.

Liu Mingyu, director of BCIA's bird strike prevention department, told the Beijing Evening News that they will attempt to cut off the food supply to encourage birds to move away.

The new methods will include planting trees and grass which birds dislike, or using chemicals which repel birds but do no harm to the environment. The drainage systems, in which sources of food like small fish or shrimps can breed, will also be cleaned out.

"It costs us more than 3 million yuan ($471,000) every year to mow the 10,000 mu (666.7 hectares) of grass near the runways and spray pesticides to kill the insects and rats," said Liu, adding that without insects to eat, the birds will not come, and accordingly, birds of prey attracted by these birds will not come either.

Shen Cheng, a project official with the animal-protection group ACT (Action Compassion Together) Asia, told the Global Times Thursday that the problem of safely dispersing birds to prevent bird strikes is a common worldwide dilemma.

"I understand the airport's new move. But I am still looking forward to the day when we can eliminate the possibility of bird strikes on the basis of not reducing their habitat," said Shen.

A flight from Chongqing to Beijing suffered a bird strike 10 minutes after takeoff on April 27. The cockpit window was cracked, forcing the plane to return to the airport, the Chongqing Daily reported.

The newspaper also cited statistics that since 1989, 2.7 aircraft suffered from bird strikes among the takeoffs and landings of 100,000 civil aviation aircraft.

According to Xinmin Evening News, birds struck two China Eastern Airlines flights within a week, one on takeoff on July 10 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, and the other on landing Monday at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. Both planes landed safely.

In January 2009, a US Airways jet ditched in the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey when it suffered a double bird strike shortly after takeoff from La Guardia Airport. All 155 people on board survived, thanks to the heroics of pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the BBC reported.

Zhang Zhengwang, an ornithologist at Beijing Normal University, said that destroying the birds' habitat over a limited area will not disturb the ecological balance.

"After all, getting them out of a certain area is much better than hurting or even killing them," said Zhang.

BCIA could establish a new habitat far from the airport to provide a new home for the displaced birds, he said.

"They can plant vegetation that birds like and attract them to live there," said Zhang.

Shanghai Pudong International Airport has used a similar method to disperse birds since 1999.

It planted bulrushes and other plants in Jiuduansha, also in the Pudong area, to make a suitable environment to change the birds' migratory routes, according to website eastday.com. Fewer birds are attracted to the area near the airport, the report said.