OLATHE, Kan. — Whenever an aircraft takes off and lands, there is a chance the plane hits a bird. To reduce the odds of a collision, the Johnson County Airport Commission employs a wildlife biologist to manage the skies at the county’s two airports.
“[Hitting a bird] causes damage to aircrafts and downtime,” said Franklin Whittaker, the biologist and airfield specialist in Johnson County.
He said the number of geese in Johnson County is increasing, which increases the hazard for pilots and their passengers.
“The problem around Johnson County is the geese have become residential, meaning they don’t migrate anymore,” he said. “Because they don’t migrate, they stick around here.”
Earlier this year, Whittaker sent letters to home owners associations around the Johnson County Executive Airport in Olathe, Kansas, asking for permission to come on the property to remove geese. Whittaker said he had to scrap those plans because of a lack of manpower this spring.
Around the airport property, Whittaker uses fireworks and paintballs to scare geese away to keep the skies above the runways clear.
He said geese are flocking birds which travel in groups. There’s a higher chance of a bird strike when birds are grouped together.
He said larger birds like hawks tend to glide and are slow to move out of the way of an airplane. Those predatory birds like airports because there is a lot of grass and meals in the prairie land.
To keep those gliders safe, Whittaker traps raptors and relocates them to places like Shawnee Mission and Big Bull Creek parks.
Last week, he caught a young red-shouldered hawk at the New Century AirCenter in Gardner, Kansas. 41 Action News followed Whittaker as he took the hawk to its new homes about ten miles away.
“This should be a pretty good habitat for him. A lot of natural prairie grass. Good trees to perch on for hunting. So hopefully he shouldn’t come back to the airport,” Whittaker said.
The Federal Aviation Administration keeps track of bird strikes at each airport. Since 2016, the most bird strikes in one year at Johnson County Executive Airport was 14 in 2020, and eight at New Century AirCenter in both 2016 and 2019. Data from the FAA shows Johnson County Executive has roughly 37,000 flights per year. New Century AirCenter sees closer to 53,000 annual flights.
For comparison sake, the Lee’s Summit Airport in Missouri is about as busy as New Century. It’s only reported two bird strikes over the past five years.
In 2020, Kansas City, Missouri, spent $140,000to hire a biologist from the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services to manage animals at Kansas City International Airport. The much busier airport had more than 100 bird strikes in 2020.
