Operation Goose Roundup Published July 6, 2009 By Kennith Green Public Affairs DOBBINS AIR RESERVE BASE, Ga. -- Keeping birds and aircraft safe while flying in the same airspace is a challenge for the 94th Airlift Wing safety staff. The Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard Prevention Program is in full swing at Dobbins. It's designed to keep military members and birds separate so they can both live to their full potential without being a hazard to one another. Here in central Georgia, geese pose a disruptive hazard to aircraft. The birds migrate to this area and some decide to stay. The BASH program has derived a system of clipping flight feathers and relocating these new residents to keep them out of our airspace. "This program is the safest and most humane way to deal with the geese situation on base," said Ronald Durant, 94th Airlift Wing ground safety manager. Since the Navy Safety center began keeping bird strike records in 1980, more than 20,000 bird strikes have been recorded, resulting in multiple deaths of service men and women. "We have been feeding the geese in the same spots for the last few days so that they will be easy to coax in close for capture. Once the geese are led in to a large pen that we close around them, they are taken out one by one for identification purposes. Part of the relocation process is to identify different sexes then placing a small band around the leg. Then we shear their primary flight feathers from one wing to prevent flight. By the time their feathers are replaced, they have been accustomed to their new home," said Leif Stevens, United States Department of Agriculture. To reduce this potential for disaster, major advances in technology and awareness are playing an important role in the BASH program of modern day military, but some of the most effective ways to stop a bird strike is to remove and relocate the birds from their feeding and nesting' s area. "Overall in the previous years the program has been a success, we remove the geese from Dobbins and they usually don't return," said Durant.
