Melissa Hoffman, a senior bird and wildlife officer at OR Tambo International Airport, shared her knowledge of her profession at the Sarie Klub’s recent function, at Summer Place.
She studied for her National Diploma in Nature Conservation and joined the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) at the old Durban Airport, in 2003.
She is enthusiastic about nature and manages the Bird Strike Avoidance Programme in order to reduce the number of bird and wildlife strikes relating to incidents with aircraft.
Her job is not only to safeguard the aircraft, but also to protect and safeguard the birds and wildlife.
ACSA roped her in after deciding to implement a programme that will reduce the risks of any bird strike incidents with aircraft.
By trial and error, it was discovered that placing scarecrows on the airfield wasn’t successful.
The next thing they decided to do was to manage the habitat itself.
“We thought it good to manipulate the habitat so that it’s not very appealing for birds to come in and want to be there,” said Hoffman.
First of all, all the grass on the airfield was cut very short.
“However, suddenly we had an influx of lapwings and realised that short grass wasn’t doing the trick either,” said Hoffman.
“We then decided to let the grass grow very tall, but then we experienced a huge influx of black-headed herons.
“Each airport within ACSA will now manage the environment, for example the grass component, to exclude the specific birds that are problematic in that environment.
“At OR Tambo International Airport there are a lot of helmeted guinea foul that appear in groups in the winter time.
“They would hide in the long grass areas and we would then go along and try to chase them, but unintentionally chase them onto the runway.
“Now we maintain the grass area short, so that our working dogs, that chase the birds off the airfield, have access to them and they have no place to hide.”
Pro-active techniques
According to Hoffman, habitat management is very important to minimise the number of birds on the airfield.
“We call the grass cutters the tractor’s meals on wheels, because the birds just tend to follow these tractors – feeding on insects that are being dispersed and rodents that are being cut up,” she said.
She explained that grass cutting next to the critical areas will take place at night, when the birds are nicely in their roosting areas.
Alien vegetation management is another important method of reducing the number of birds on the airfield.
“We try to reduce the number of perching places for birds in critical areas,” said Hofmann.
She pointed out that standing water is another component that attracts a lot of birds into the environment.
“We make sure that areas with standing water get drains, so the birds can’t come in,” she added.
Waste is also a component that has to be managed, especially with the grey-headed gulls that come in during the winter time.
“A bird flying low and seeing open refuse sites is going to be attracted to the area – it is like advertising free food,” Hoffman said.
“We try to manage the waste so that it’s covered and birds don’t have access to this facility.”
According to Hoffman, the Sun International Airports have changed the grass component on the airfield completely.
They’ve planted a specific grass that doesn’t grow very fast and, therefore, reduces grass cutting and attracts fewer birds into the environment.
She stressed that airports really need to be careful about which techniques they use.
“At OR Tambo International Airport we have members of the East Rand Bird Club doing bird counts every Friday, around the airfield itself, so that we can formulate techniques to use,” she said.
“The removal of bird eggs is another technique used to reduce the number of birds in an area.”
Hoffman and her team also contribute to museum research.
“Say, for instance, there are incidents where bird do collide with aircraft, then those carcasses will be taken to the Pretoria Museum and distributed to students who do analysis on the birds, which contributes to scientific research,” she said.
Re-active techniques
According to Hoffman, this is one of the best methods they utilise to control birds on the airfield.
This is done by, for example, introducing potential predators onto the airport itself.
“We are using Border collies and springer spaniels to chase the birds off any critical area. They are used on a rotational basis, from sunrise to sunset.”
“We control the critical areas around the main landing runways and the takeoff runways,” she said.
“If we see any birds too close to the runway we’ll get permission to go onto the runway, chase the birds, make sure everyone is safe and that the runway is clear, then we’ll re-open it.” – @IschkeBoksburg
