Dallas Morning News

April 22, 2000

Collies' Work At Runways Not For The Birds

Dogs help stop collisions with planes at air base

By Associated Press

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. - Shadow and Monty are the ultimate bird dogs, border collies that chase bird away from runways, protecting planes and lives.

Lately the medium-size black-and-white dogs have been taking on swarms of Canada geese that stay near Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

"Birds around the base have pretty much gone to zero" since the dogs started work, said Maj. Frank Smolinsky, a spokesman for the Dover base, home to the huge C-5 Galaxy cargo planes.

It's important work.

Birds can be sucked into airplane jet engines, sometimes causing the engines to lose power. Birds also smash flaps and rudders.

And at speeds that jets travel, a collision with a 4-pound bird can do tremendous damage to a plane, said Gene LeBoeuf of the Bird/Wildlife Aircraft Strike Hazard Team - BASH for short - at Kirtland Air Force Base's Safety Center in Albuquerque.

BASH advises military bases around the world how to keep birds and other creatures away from aircraft.

Between 1985 and 1999, some 39,854 collisions between birds and Air Force planes have been recorded, the Air Force says. Sixteen planes have been lost, 36 people have been killed and the damages have run more than a half million dollars.

Collisions between birds and civilian aircraft happen as well. In 1988, 31 of 105 passengers aboard an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner died when its engines failed after sucking in pigeons shortly after takeoff. The plane tried to return to the airport and crash-landed.

BASH's latest trick is borrowed from the keepers of golf courses. They use high-energy border collies to chase birds away.

Handler Nick Carter gives the dogs commands while they are on the airfield. He runs Border Collie Rescue, a rescue network for the breed. The base pays $7,400 a month for its services.

Officials said it was a small price to pay: The base has spent $1.2 million on repairs to C-5 aircraft caused by from bird damage in the last two years. The dogs are but one tool and might not work everywhere, Mr. LeBoeuf said.

Techniques to control birds near airfields fall into three categories, Mr. LeBoeuf said.

First, airfield managers try to change the environment to make it less attractive to birds. That could mean getting rid of a nearby prairie dog colony which provides food for predator birds or draining a swamp that provides bird habitat.

Second, they try to scare birds off. Some bases use fireworks; others use remote-controlled aircraft. Mr. LeBoeuf said airfield managers must continue those techniques or the birds return.

Third, they will shoot birds that won't go away. They have to get permits for most shootings and cannot kill endangered species.

Mr. LeBoeuf and Maj. Peter Windler, also of BASH, acknowledge that efforts to rid airfields of birds often run into criticism from environmentalists. But the men say human needs come first.

"We cannot afford to drop an airplane down on an apartment complex," Major Windler said.