NY plans bird cull against air disasters

Bird strikes became a household phrase after a pilot was forced to land a large passenger plane into the Hudson River in New York, in the early part of spring, however most people are unaware of just how common bird strikes are.

In fact, bird strikes having been growing more common in the last several years as the USA federal aviation authority reports show that in 1990 there were only 1,750 versus the 7,666 in 2001.

In response to the threat of future bird strikes which may be more deadly next time, New York authorities have decided to place a cull on 2,000 Canadian geese in the state of New York.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said that as the case of US Airways Flight 1549 showed when it was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson, the Canadian Geese are a present threat which should be learned from instead of ignored. According to Bloomberg the cull will help reduce future threats of bird strikes.

The area New York major airports of LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark have existing programmes in place which will be strengthened and enhanced to further reduce the amount of bird strikes with the cull.

In the past, birds that were shot were donated to food banks or trapped and moved. The new plan according to Bloomberg’s spokesman Jason Post will be to take the geese that are collected from a herding point and euthanizing those using methods that the American Veterinary Medical Association approves.

The geese will be captured from city property that is within eight kilometres of the city airports which is approximately the amount of time that planes are low enough in the atmosphere during takeoff or descent when they are vulnerable to bird strikes.

In the last ten years, there have been 77 goose related bird strikes although they were not as serious as the Hudson airbus landing according to the FAA.