Reducing wildlife hazards to aviation at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport through agency and community coordination

Abstract

This paper provides a summary of the comprehensive and integrated wildlife hazard management programme at Maryland Aviation Administration (MAA), compares the data presented in BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport's 2001 and 2012 wildlife hazard assessments, considers assessment data within the context of regional trends for the same species, and reviews trends in the number of reported wildlife strikes documented in the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) wildlife strike database since MAA implemented its wildlife hazard management programme. Based on comparison survey data collected over a 12-month period in 2001 and 2011, MAA's ongoing efforts to reduce the presence of hazardous wildlife on and near the airport appear to have been successful; however, the effect of reducing the number of wildlife strikes recorded at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport remains unclear, as the total number of wildlife strikes reported appears to have increased overall during the past decade. This ambiguity may be attributed to inconsistent reporting practices associated with the FAA's wildlife strike database, which may have captured only a portion of the number of actual strikes historically and provided a poor baseline for comparison, and MAA's concerted effort to educate the airport community, including operations staff and pilots, to report wildlife strikes in recent years.