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Although the management of wildlife at airports has seen great progress in recent decades, wildlife collisions with aircraft continue to pose risks to human safety and economic losses to the aviation industry and military (Allan 2002, Dolbeer 2009). Our understanding of physiological and behavioral responses of wildlife to various types of repellents and harassment techniques has grown tremendously. Substantial inroads have been made in developing and optimizing exclusion devices, particularly for mammals. Research and management have increased considerably in recent years, allowing us to better understand aspects of resource use (e.g., cover, food) by wildlife and the spatial scales at which they operate (Martin et al. 2011), as well as to improve current management strategies. We suggest that these two forms of management—repellents and harassment (e.g., Chapters 2–4) and habitat management (e.g., Chapters 8–11)—should be integrated to reduce hazardous wildlife use of airports. Direct control methods (e.g., hazing) typically work only in the short term; reducing habitat suitability for wildlife at airports will likely enhance long-term efficacy of these techniques. As the integration of several control techniques can result in marked reductions of wildlife use at airports compared to using individual control techniques (see Conover 2002), our improved understanding of ecological theory related to wildlife use of these areas also can enhance our ability to manage associated wildlife risks. Understanding the mechanisms, or causes, of wildlife use of areas at and near airports allows us to better manage potential hazards. This fundamental mechanistic understanding results in more accurate selection of management options and long-term efficacy of management, which reduces its overall costs. To re-emphasize a simple but effective example, consider a situation described by Bernhardt et al. (2009), who noted comparatively high rates of aircraft collisions with tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) during autumn at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, New York, USA. Rather than increasing harassment actions each autumn to disperse the swallows, airport personnel conducted a study on food resources (Chapter 8) and found that their diet consisted predominantly of northern bayberry fruit (Myrica pensylvanica ). Determined to be the mechanism or cause of the problem, the bayberry shrubs were subsequently removed. Aircraft strikes with swallows declined markedly in years following bayberry removal, which resulted in reduced hazards to aircraft and allowed airport biologists to focus on other issues. Although considerable progress has been made in reducing wildlife hazards to aircraft, several important needs for additional information remain. There is need for better understanding of which wildlife species collide most often with aircraft. In the USA, reporting wildlife–civil aircraft strikes to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is voluntary (Cleary and Dolbeer 2005). Heightened public awareness of wildlife collisions with aircraft increased following the crash of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River (Marra et al. 2009), which in turn increased reportJerrold L. Belant Travis L. DeVault Bradley F. Blackwell Conclusions and Future Directions 15 168 wildlife monitoring ing rates, but only an estimated 39% of all strikes with U.S.-registered aircraft are reported to the FAA (Dolbeer 2009). In addition, only about 26% of reports of wildlife strikes with civil aircraft identify the species involved (Dolbeer and Wright 2009). An improved understanding of the species involved in aircraft collisions could advance our knowledge of those most hazardous to aircraft, as well as strike timing and areas of greatest risk. This knowledge could then help inform airport biologists and contribute to regional- or national-level assessments of risk. Standardization of survey and monitoring techniques is similarly necessary to ensure consistency in data collection and to allow comparison of hazards at a given airport over seasons or years, as well as to compare relative hazards among airports. In the USA, passenger-certificated airports that experience wildlife hazards are required by the FAA to obtain a Wildlife Hazard Assessment, followed by implementation of a Wildlife Hazard Management Plan (Dolbeer and Wright 2009). Chapter 14 provides a framework that modifies common bird survey approaches to facilitate standardization of data collected within and across airports . One advantage of this approach is the ability to estimate relative species abundance by incorporating imperfect detection of individuals (e.g., MacKenzie 2005). Such standardization and objective-driven data collection can facilitate the development of spatially explicit risk models for airports. Monitoring wildlife use of airports in this manner can improve our ability to discern the best management approaches and to assess the effects of management practices. An important research...

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