Operation Bird Dog: Collie keeps the flocks of the runways

It's a peaceful Thursday beside Southwest Florida International Airport's runway. Planes glide to stops on pavement. Reflections of clouds dance in a reed-laden canal running the length of the landing strip. Prompted by a moving black-and-white speck in the distance, an egret and crane lift from the grassy canal bank and soar skyward.

The speck is Jet, a 3-year-old, 35-pound border collie the airport purchased to herd birds from its runway.

Jet, the bird-herding dog at Southwest Florida International Airport, jumps from the truck of Richard Keane, an operations agent at the airport Friday. Jet has successfully chased most of the birds that made the grassy areas near the runways their home. Mark Andrews/Staff

Jet gallops to his trainer with energy that could put a canine in a Mighty Dog ad to shame. He runs open-mouthed, tongue dangling out the side. He looks like he's smiling.

Airport Operations Manager Bobby Orick watches Jet with a visitor from Patrick Air Force Base, which is considering buying its own border collie. Orick practically apologizes. Other than occasional handfuls of birds, there's not much to see.

"I'll let this be a testimony of the job he's doing for us," Orick says, motioning to the bird-free airfield. "I'd really like to show you some action, but I can't bring myself to complain about this problem."

It's been 12 months since Jet became the country's first airport bird dog. In that time, Jet - complete with his own e-mail address and a business card snazzier than some two-legged professionals - has been featured on national news networks and a slew of newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal.

But the most important publication of all came last week when a wildlife report confirmed what airport officials suspected all along - Jet's work is taking off.

That work includes ridding the airport of large birds that collide with planes - occurrences that can damage, even down, aircraft and bring a fatal end to feathered creatures. A Federal Aviation Administration report claims birds collide with 2,500 planes annually in the United States, causing more $48 million in aircraft damage since 1991.

Richard Keane surveys the field that surrounds the runway inside the perimeter road that surrounds the airfield. As the truck rounds the corner and comes into view, the birds take notice and fly away. "They know the dog is in here," Keane says. Mark Andrews/Staff

Since Jet's Fort Myers debut, airports worldwide became interested in the idea of bird dogs. A handful across the United States and Canada now have dogs of their own. While border collies are just one tool used by Southwest Florida International and airports nationwide, dogs may prove to be the most effective instrument for ruffling feathers.

In 1995, a plane departing Fort Myers slammed into two sandhill cranes. The result was an emergency landing.

According to Jami McCormick, the airport's manager of planning and environmental compliance, the incident was the catalyst for the bird dog.

The event led to an 11-month ecological study in 1997-98 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It showed 133 species of wildlife in the 450-acre airfield. USDA officers noticed sandhill cranes ignored planes and often walked the runway. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission suggested the airport form a plan to make the area "less attractive" to birds.

McCormick and Orick learned of bird dogs at a 1998 bird strike conference. There, Nick Carter, who operates a border collie rescue shelter in Melrose, spoke about airport dogs. Carter once trained collies to rid birds from golf courses. After watching a TV news report about bird-airplane collisions, he was convinced dogs would also work on airfields.

"We'd take dogs to golf courses with 100 geese. A week later, there would be three," Carter said. "We knew it would work. It was just a matter of trying to convince someone else it would work."

The Fort Myers airport paid Kevin L. Erwin Consulting Ecologist Inc. $28,000 to study its wildlife from February to September 1999. Compared to 1998's USDA study, the number of wading and shore birds like sandhill cranes, egrets and herons was reduced by half. These larger birds are the most likely to damage aircraft. The 1999 study also found zero sandhill crane nests in the airfield. Two nests were found in 1998.

Bird strikes also dropped. The airport recorded nine strikes in 1997 and 16 in 1998. Last year, the number dove to four. McCormick said 1999's strikes involved soaring birds out of Jet's reach.

McCormick said the airport first thought a dog would "go after birds barking willy-nilly," without providing control. Jet's tendency to rarely bark and sneak up on birds to herd rather than chase has alleviated those worries.

"The significant changes are that all the birds congregate in one area along the canal that Jet can't access," she said. "Where we might have had 100 birds come in before, we now might have 10."

The airport has other bird-scaring devices - pyrotechnics, tapes of bird warning calls and chemicals causing intestinal discomfort. Yet the report noted birds increased in April. Jet returned to Border Collie Rescue that month to work with a live alligator so he would avoid the reptiles during morning and evening chases.

"Jet's one part of this big program, but he's the most important part to me," explains Orick. "I don't know how we got along without him."

The airport paid $6,000 for Carter to train Jet. That price also included teaching the airport's six operations agents to control the dog with whistle and voice commands. Carter said he's pleased with Jet's work, but feels the airport would be bird-free if it had employees dedicated only to wildlife management.

"They should literally have about zero birds, but it's because ... they don't have anybody who does wildlife control," Carter said. "(Jet) improved their situation dramatically, but I want them to have no birds and no problem."

If you ask Carter, the reason border collies do well at airports is simple: they're workaholics.

"You never have to convince them to go to work," he said. "These guys will do it 12, 15 hours a day."

And by their nature, Carter said birds are attracted to airfields. Their grasses, canals and ditches wrapped in a fenced, predator-free package creates "the perfect bird habitat." Adding a natural predator like a border collie takes away a bird's "cushy place to hang out."

Carter says dogs won't remove all feathered friends. But they will shoo bigger birds, those that cause trouble.

"If you hit a sparrow with a 747, it will leave a tiny little smudge," he said. "It's bigger birds that have a more dramatic effect. But those are the birds the dogs work on."

Since training Jet, Carter said 200 airports have contacted him about buying airport dogs. But only about two dozen inquiries were serious.

Each dog is $150, but additional costs vary because each canine is custom-trained. All dogs train with ducks at Border Collie Rescue, then test their skills at Gainesville's airport. Yet, Jet was taught to avoid alligators and deep, marshy water. Border collies at Canada's Cold Lake Air Force Base learned to sit on snowmobiles and steer clear of porcupines.

"It's like custom-building a car," Carter said. "(Price) depends on how much you want."

Last year, Carter also trained dogs for Vancouver's airport and Air Force bases in Dover, Del., and Alberta's Cold Lake. An airport in Augusta, Ga., also committed to a border collie. Next week, Carter flies to Israel to talk to its air force about the dogs.

In the past year, Carter and Fort Myers Airport officials have talked about Jet with everyone from the "Today Show," CNN and the Discovery Channel to USA Today. Statistics say nearly 20 million viewers saw Jet somewhere on TV after his arrival last spring.

The dog's also bombarded by mail. Last week, Jet received e-mail offering him a job with good benefits and a 401(k) plan. Meanwhile, after learning about Jet in their Weekly Readers, a third-grade class in Pennsylvania sent the dog hand-drawn pictures, letters and a rawhide bone.

No one expected the publicity Jet has gathered, but it's helped spread the bird dog word to other airports.

Vancouver International Airport Authority purchased two collies, Fleet and Sky, in September. But David Ball, supervisor of the airport's wildlife program, said it's too soon to tell if the pair have reduced the airfield's million-plus birds. While the airport uses other scare methods, Ball said only the dogs have eliminated the troublesome Canada geese.

"The dogs are another tool, except they're warm-blooded and furry and they lick you and other things," he said. "Their ability to scare birds far supersedes anything man can produce."

Fleet and Sky work five hours each day under 13 wildlife officers. Ball said the dogs scare away one species that's soon replaced by another. However, he said he thinks the airport, which had 46 bird strikes in 1998, will be "more effective" in controlling birds as the dogs and trainers continue to acclimate.

Meanwhile, because of Jet's well-publicized success, Carter said he thinks more airports will acclimate to bird dogs.

"I think they'll be as commonplace as drug dogs and bomb dogs," he said. "You're saving dogs. You're saving birds. You're potentially saving lives. There's nothing bad about it."

There's no need repeating that to folks at Southwest Florida International. Jet patrols twice daily. But these days, birds often scatter at the sight of the Ford Explorer that transports him to the airfield.

On this Thursday, Jet herds what he can along a canal, then returns to operations agent Gil Forgays when told.

"Good boy," Forgays tells Jet, rubbing the dog's floppy ears. "You did exactly what you're supposed to do."

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Operation Bird Dog: Collie keeps the flocks off the runways