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The hazard to commercial airplanes from birds striking windscreens or being sucked into jet engines will only increase as in greater numbers planes circumvent to the sky and the population of 10-pound bird species continues to grow, says the wildlife biologist by regard to Seattle Tacoma International Airport.

The dramatic landing of a US Airways passenger jet in New York City’s Hudson River on Thursday has focused attention on potentially catastrophic bird versus plane collisions, said Sea-Tac biologist Steve Osmek. US Air Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson after Canada geese apparently were sucked into its engines, disabling both. All 155 family aboard survived.

Experts have been working for years to mitigate in the same state avian damage to aircraft by fabrication airports as uninteresting as possible to birds. When birds show up at Sea-Tac, Osmek and a company of contractors scare them away with booming pyrotechnics, relocate them or, if they’ve grown accustomed to planes and humans, capture them for peaceful death.

“It’s important that we do everything we can to keep wildlife away from planes,” Osmek uttered. “It’s in the birds’ best interest.”

On Friday, about a dozen members of the media were loaded on a shuttle bus for a tour of the airport’s wildlife-mitigation projects. To discourage bird visits, Sea-Tac officials require covered a stormwater-detention pond with fencing so waterfowl can’t land on it, shaded a wetland to stop algae from growing and producing a diet source, and planted dense vegetable growth so large birds such as Canada geese can’face to face land or take off.

Near the newly opened third runway, Osmek pointed out a humane stratagem that each year catches 1,000 to 3,000 starlings — nonnative birds that are then euthanized.

A contractor hired by the airport has relocated approximately 200 red-tail hawks and their young to a spot south of Bellingham in recent years. Only one has ever returned, Osmek said.

Aircraft-bird strikes up

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) doesn’t direct airlines to report bird strikes, so it’s hard to get a handle on public figures, Osmek said. Last year, in that place were reports of approximately 105 aircraft-bird strikes at Sea-Tac, up from 76 in 2007, only two-thirds happened in some place en way to the airport, he said. Nationwide, about 7,400 general survey strikes were reported, moreover actual numbers are probably higher, he said.

More than 80 percent of bird strikes happen at 1,000 feet of elevation or smaller, said Osmek.

Of any species, Osmek aforesaid, gulls are most likely to run aground planes while crows are the least that may be liked. Flocks of crows have equable been seen to change direction to fight shy of an aircraft. Crows and other “airport savvy” species don’t artificial position nearly the peril that migrating birds and young birds swindle, he reported.

But larger birds are the most dangerous. Osmek said the populations of birds 8-10 pounds are growing, and heavier birds have a greater potential for causing damage.