Mastermark took a journey across the Pacific to attend this year’s North American Bird Strike Committee Conference (USBSC). Attending this conference allowed our team to understand what other airport biologists are doing at their airports and to connect with others in the airport industry, allowing for an exchange of ideas and knowledge to build a better airport consultancy team.
A Summary of the US Bird Strike Conference
When we landed we were greeted with the dry desert air and were ready to embark on a four day itinerary of workshops, presentations, and meeting key figures in the industry.
The week started at Salt Lake City International Airport’s wildlife facility, with a keynote address that went in-depth about the history of bird strikes – did you know, the first recorded bird strike happened in 1905 with an Orville Wright flight? Here the team took an in-depth look at Salt Lake City’s raptor trapping programmes, even a workshop on banding raptors. The week carried on with informative sessions ranging from innovative bird tracking technologies to how to repel different vulture species. Pictured above is the team with USDA biologist, Megan Denean, with her research on a liquid goose repellent spray and its effectiveness on an airbase. Connecting with airport biologists like Megan helped us bring new ideas and solutions to our team in Singapore. After attending multiple days of sessions, we had the opportunity to tour the runways of Salt Lake City International Airport. The hard-working wildlife team at the airport showed us and let us play around with their different traps, propane cannons, and stockwhips.
People in the Industry: Robin Radar and Avisure
The key benefit of any conference is the opportunity to meet other folks from the industry across countries. Here, we met up with Marcel Verdonk and Sibylle Giraud at Robin Radar, whom we have a long partnership with over the years and Jeff Follett from Avisure. Besides sharing a meal with them, it was always great exchanging ideas and thoughts about airport wildlife hazard management.
Carla Dove - Program Director in the Bird Division at Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History
Carla Dove is a forensic ornithologist who specializes in identifying unknown feathers and “snarge” retrieved from aircraft engines. She has published over 40 articles of research that have led to the creation of an American bird strike database. Apart from her contributions to the birdstrike community, she is also a certifiably fun human! We loved chatting with her, from comparing different species of raptors to fun travel stories.
Sharing insights with FAA’s John Weller when we were photobombed by Nick Atwell from BSC’s Comms Team!
John Weller is a familiar face to the conference. He is an experienced wildlife biologist with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who uses his expertise to assist the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). A veteran in this field, he has published a number of different articles and even podcasts in wildlife hazard management.
Sang-Dong Lee of South Korea’s EWHA Woman's University and Itamar Zolei of Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport
Mastermark was not the only international attendees to this year's conference. Dr. Lee is an Environmental Science and Engineering professor at EWHA Woman's University who has published multiple environmental impact assessments. Itamar Zolei is an airport operations officer in Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport specializing in wildlife management.
Conclusion:
Everyone who had a part in making the conference did a wonderful job at facilitating a space for wildlife biologists and ecologists like ourselves to connect and communicate with others in our field. It was refreshing to talk to other airport biologists to see what they are doing at their airports. Besides airport biologists, anyone working in airspaces would benefit from attending this conference. The airline pilots, vendors, and other airport operations personnel in attendance helped to make the week more than just a biologist meetup and more of a learning experience. The Mastermark team is excited to reconnect and learn with our new friends at the next bird strike conference.
Extra Highlights:
Off-time for wildlife biologists and ecologists always must include time in the great outdoors. The team trekked to Antelope Island State Park and ended up spotting wild American bison and pronghorn antelope, along with many species of shorebirds.
Continuing our travels, we trekked to the Bonneville Salt Flats and added the state of Nevada onto our itinerary. The salt flats are estimated to hold over 145 million tons of salt.
Comments