SUSTAINABILITY

FEATURES
Three years after Sir Peter had raised
the issue the unit decided to breed its
own falcons, thus avoiding the need to
take birds from the wild or importing
them from abroad. The breeding
programme has now become so
successful that all the falcons used for
bird control operations at Yeovilton
and Culdrose are domestic bred at
RNAS Yeovilton. These techniques
were later used extensively in the
United States to repopulate the
peregrine populations that had been
devastated by the use of DDT. The
Peregrine Fund in the US later went on
to breed a wide range of endangered
birds of prey.
Peregrine falcon chicks, 11 days old © Crown
£25,000 in repairs. Since introducing
the falcons we have not had a single jet
aircraf t birdstrike on the airfield so have
saved almost £1¼m for an outlay of a
few hundred (each falcon costs about
£50 to purchase).
At that time the RNAS had sourced
their falcons from British Military Units
stationed in the middle-east. However
this was an unreliable source of birds
and the limitation on supply meant
that this experiment could not be
rolled out to other stations.
At the star t of the experiment the
‘gulls, rooks and (other) crows‘
which were the main concern
were thought to be a problem
‘which had to be lived with’. Most
air fields have a bird population
and in the main this is of fairly
small propor tions. The incidence of
birdstrikes was correspondingly low
and hence aircraf t operators resigned
themselves to replacing expensive
bits of air frame and engines rather
than removing the birds. However
the success of the use of falcons to
scare birds was proven to be a ver y
effec tively solution.
Other methods to scare birds were
tried but nothing was as effective as
using the falcons. However there was
still the need to use alternatives for
night flights and Verey cartridges fired
at random timings was successful.
Importantly the work of the unit
was accompanied by structured
scientifically based bird counts that
demonstrated the success of the
trials. “The object being to provide both
a graphic record of Lossiemouth’s bird
population and an indication of the
effectiveness of this latest method of
bird-scaring”.
By early summer 1967 the unit
had ceased to be on trial and was
established on a permanent basis.
In 1972 the Bird Control Unit (BCU)
moved to its present location
at RNAS Yeovilton and began
operating using similar methods,
bird dis tress tap es, pyrotechnics,
shotguns and the most ef fec tive
– falcons. In 1975 the operation
was ex tended to RNAS Culdrose in
Cornwall. This resulted in birdstrike
reduc tions at both air stations.
Today’s Royal Navy Bird Control Units,
with its combined programme of
pyrotechnics and other mechanical
acoustic devices and its trained team
of peregrine falcons and bird control
falconers, is a vital part of FLIGHT SAFETY.
Success at RNAS Yeovilton can be
measured by the fact that the average
annual bird strike rate on the airfield
is 0.6 or approximately one every two
years, which equates to one bird strike
every 90,000 airfield aircraft movements.
This issue of lowering the bird strike
risk remains high on the agenda. The
costs involved in replacing aircraft
and damaged engines on modern
aircraft flown has become prohibitively
expensive so other approaches have
to be integrated into lowering bird
strike risk. The approach used is
largely based around the ‘long-grass
policy’ that aims to make airfields less
attractive in the first place to birds by
making the food resources unavailable
to them. However there can be high
costs involved in re-seeding whole
airfields with specially bred strains of
grass and maintenance costs remain
high. How much better to continue
with the ancient art of falconry and
how much more interesting.
Brian Bird
Fleet Bird Control Advisor
(Falconry Historian)
Nat Cole
Airfield Bird Control Falconer
Sanctuary 44 • 2015
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