With pigs you may fly! Herd of porkers help stave off airplane bird strikes at Dutch airport

У вашего броузера проблема в совместимости с HTML5

Amsterdam’s Schipol airport has come up with an innovative idea to help reinforce security of flights by reducing incidence of bird strikes, as seen in footage filmed outside the location on Wednesday.

The pilot project allows farm pigs to graze in the immediate vicinity of the runway, just outside the fencing, where the animals will search and consume the residue of recently harvested sugar beet. The crops attract birds which increases related airplane incidents.

Project coordinator Yvonne Versteeg explained the existing problem. “Last year we had around 150 bird strikes, that was seven bird strikes per 10,000 flights movement at Schiphol airport,” she said.
“We want to know if you can use this method on a larger scale, maybe next year, and we also are comparing this field for these six weeks with another field,” she added, as the project appears to bring initial positive results.

Farmer Josse Haarhuis commented on his observations so far saying they gave grounds for optimism. “The two first weeks were good. Right now, because of the birds were not that much in the fences so it was better than we expected. The pigs are really keeping the birds away,” he stated.
A herd of 20 pigs are currently placed between Runway 18R-36L and Runway 18C-36C, with approximately two kilometres of land to graze on.

—-

SOT, Josse Haarhuis, Farmer: “The sugar beets, the birds they really like them and the pigs like them as well you can see they eating the top of the sugar beet and when they harvest, they leave the top in the field and that’s why the birds are coming here to eat that. The pigs eat it as well but they eat it first and then there’s nothing left for the birds so the birds fly over and search for another place.”

SOT, Josse Haarhuis, Farmer: “They get like one kilo of optimised food for them because they need to stay healthy and next to that they eat the rest of the harvest over here and because they’re eating it, the birds can’t eat it.”

SOT, Josse Haarhuis, Farmer: “The pigs are not reacting that much to the sounds of the airplanes that are crossing by on the runway over there. So that’s why I know the pigs are not stressed by it.”

SOT, Josse Haarhuis, Farmer: “The two first weeks were good. Right now, because of the birds were not that much in the fences so it was better than we expected. The pigs are really keeping the birds away.”

SOT, Yvonne Versteeg, Schiphol airport researcher: “Last year we had around 150 bird strikes, that was seven bird strikes per 10,000 flights movement at Schiphol airport.”

SOT, Yvonne Versteeg, Schiphol airport researcher: “The experiment is to see how much time they need to clean the field of this crop residue. We want to know if you can use this method on a larger scale, maybe next year, and we also are comparing this field for these six weeks with another field on another part of the airport to compare the bird presence.”

SOT, Yvonne Versteeg, Schiphol airport researcher: “Bird control uses different tools, they have the laser to scare the birds, they use sounds with cries of fear or cries of birds of prey and they use signal guns but also sounds and flashes of lights to scare off the birds.”

#Netherlands #Amsterdam #SchipolAirport #pigs #BirdStrikes

Video ID: 20211006-053

Video on Demand: https://ruptly.tv/videos/20211006-053
Contact: [email protected]

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ruptly
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Ruptly