Airport Wildlife Hazard Assessments

Wildlife Hazard Assessments (WHA) help identify and minimize risks of aircraft-wildlife collisions and in turn save lives — of both humans and animals — as well as repair costs and damaged aircraft downtime.

Large tracts of open, undeveloped land that act as safety margins and mitigate noise for airports can present aviation hazards if they encourage wildlife to enter an airport’s approach/departure airspace or air operations area. In fact, aircraft wildlife collisions and engine ingestion of wildlife result in millions of dollars in damage and pose a serious threat to human safety.

FAA regulations require that a qualified airport biologist with professional training specifically in airport wildlife hazard management conduct the WHA. SWCA has on staff several such FAA-certified airport biologists as well as trained airport wildlife biologists. SWCA’s breadth of trained and experienced wildlife biologists across our offices allows us to provide WHAs and a wide range of additional natural resource consulting services for airport projects.