Inside Vancouver
It’s a Bird! Hits a Plane!
By Anne Casselman published Mar 1, 2008
Let’s be honest,” says Dave Ball, who supervises the Vancouver airport’s million-dollar wildlife management program. “This is the worst place they could have built an airport.”
We’re standing at the southeastern edge of the YVR complex, on the western flank of the Fraser River delta, and we’re talking birds. The delta that accommodates the airport has the highest density of wintering waterfowl and migrating shorebirds in British Columbia. YVR is unique among Canadian airports in that the number of avian visitors actually skyrockets in the winter, thanks to our mild climate. To keep them away from our aircraft, Ball and his team pestered more than 200,000 birds last January. All told, two million birds—over three times the human population of Vancouver—were chased off the airfield in 2006.
“Put your fingers in your ears,” Ball orders. He’s about to fire off the newest addition to his arsenal of bird-harassing gear, a light and hardy remote-controlled propane cannon that sits off South Perimeter Road. Its brightly coloured components pop against the roiling middle arm of the Fraser River and the pale clouds that cling overhead.
En route to our meeting, I had envisioned a typical cannon, but smaller—a bird-size 9 O’Clock Gun. Instead, I face a mini propane tank, battery pack, solar panel, transmitter, and firing tube all plonked atop a little wagon. Ball presses Fire on his remote control. Sure enough, his Tonka Toy weapon emits a white flash of fire and…BOOM! There are no birds around for the sobering demo, but there’s little doubt that any in the vicinity would have been sent into a rout. “Absolutely, the purpose of harassment is to teach the birds that this is a place they don’t want to be,” says Simon Robinson, an environmental specialist at the airport. “There shouldn’t be a reward for being here; they’re going to get chased around.”
Collisions between birds and commercial planes are serious business, and the Vancouver airport’s wildlife management program is arguably the most rigorous in North America. “I don’t think there’s any airport that has quite as many resources dedicated to the job as Vancouver,” says Gary Searing, a wildlife biologist who has worked with the airport since 1989.
