•  
  •  
 

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Abstract

Wildlife–aircraft collisions (wildlife strikes) pose a serious risk to civil and military aircraft. Each year, Laysan albatrosses (Phoebastria immutabilis) attempt to establish a breeding colony on the airfield at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) located on the island of Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i, USA, resulting in a hazard to safe military aircraft operations at this facility. A long-term management program, with an emphasis on mitigation translocation (e.g., live-capture and translocation away from the area) of problematic individuals, has been conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Services. However, the efficacy of mitigation translocation as a nonlethal management tool is unknown, especially in island ecosystems and with seabirds. During 2018 to 2020, we radio-tagged adult Laysan albatrosses and released individuals at locations either 4 km or 45 km from the PMRF airfield during 2 time periods (early and late) within the Laysan albatross breeding season (November to April). We monitored for returns of radio-tagged Laysan albatrosses to PMRF using automated tracking units placed around the PMRF airfield, by hand tracking, and by examining all Laysan albatrosses that were live-captured on the airfield during the same breeding season. Findings from our study suggest mitigation translocation, by itself, has minimal value as a management method to reduce the risk of Laysan albatross–aircraft collisions at PMRF and other military airfields. Future research is needed to evaluate integrated wildlife hazard management programs (with and without mitigation translocation) in regard to their efficacy for reducing the risk of collisions between aircraft and Laysan albatrosses (and other seabirds).

Download

Share

COinS