A recent CNN.com article reported on U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) concerns with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Wildlife Hazard Mitigation Program. The program’s goal is to reduce the risk of wildlife strikes to aviation. The FAA requires airports to create and implement plans to assess and minimize strike risk.
But, according to an August 2012 audit report by DOT’s Office of Inspector General, FAA oversight and enforcement activity is insufficient to ensure that airports (1) follow the program’s requirements or (2) effectively implement wildlife hazard plans. Among other things, the report cited that (1) the FAA has not developed robust inspection practices, (2) FAA inspectors lack necessary expertise in wildlife hazards, and (3) the inspectors failed to maintain adequate inspection records. The report also notes that, because FAA policies and guidance for monitoring, reporting, and mitigating wildlife hazards are mainly voluntary, their effectiveness is limited. The report provided ten recommendations for improving program management and oversight.
According to the report, the number of reported wildlife strikes has increased five-fold between 1990 and 2011: from 1,770 to 9,840. The report partly attributes the rise to an increase in large bird populations such as Canada
