Nevermore at Davis-Monthan

Flying Safety, Sept, 2004 by David C. von Brock

Once upon a morning dreary, while I pondered,
weak and weary,
Over many AFSAS volumes of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of a cell phone gently rapping,
rapping at my office door,
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered,
"tapping at my office door"
Only Base Ops, and nothing more"

Ah, distinctly I remember,
it was in the bleak December,
And each depredated foul,
wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven,
wandering from the local landfill
"Sir, we've got 50 birds on the infield again,
your shotgun we implore"
"Ravens again?!!" said I,
"surely, there must be something done before.
But how," thought I,
"rid Ravens from thy airfield evermore?"

(with apologies to E.A. Poe)

This spring, operations at Davis-Monthan AFB were confronted by the hazard of large flocks of ravens congregating in and around the airfield. It started in December, when the birds started showing up once or twice a week in small groups. The situation continued to decline through early spring, culminating every morning with a flock of 30 to 50 ravens hanging out near the approach lighting or immediately adjacent to ACC's busiest single runway operation.

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Here's what we knew. The source of the ravens was a city landfill three miles south of the airfield.

A trip to the landfill revealed hundreds to thousands of ravens feeding from the discarded scraps from the citizens of Tucson. Although the landfill managers covered the trash at night, during the day the ravens enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet.

So, what was the attraction at D-M? We couldn't identify a food source near the runway (dirt and six-inch-high dormant grass) that came close to the free smorgasbord offered daily at the landfill. Nor were there any water sources nearby. The ravens didn't call D-M home either--they roosted next to the landfill. According to our resident biologist, Ms. Gwen Lisa, ravens have a highly intelligent nature and social life. Like the Auger Inn on a Friday night, our infield was a popular fly-in singles bar for local ravens. The ravens came here to pick mates--which includes hopping around on the ground and picking up rocks to impress females, if you are a raven. The biologists agreed that the ravens would pair off in March and then go their separate ways. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of February, and I had to brief the vice wing commander at the upcoming Bird Hazard Working Group on how we intended to deal with the hazard.

Attack Plan Alpha: Make them uncomfortable. Our BASH program had three shotguns and a large allotment of bird-scare devices and bird-shot. Every morning, our Flight Safety shop diligently converged on the ravens. After a few rounds, the flocks would move to another location, and eventually were persuaded to leave the airfield--albeit without a few of their friends. However, next morning they were back with new friends. One morning, our tired but determined flight safety NCO, SSgt Aaron Spanier, said, "You know, sir, back on the farm, my grandmother would string up dead blackbirds to keep them out of the garden." We kept up the morning depredation for a month and killed three to five ravens a day. My NCOs became proficient killing machines, but we weren't making any headway with the raven influx. It was the end of March and time for a different plan of attack.

Attack Plan Bravo: Dead bird on a stick. I had been in contact with the HQ AFSC BASH Team chief. After discussing a few options, the subject of hanging a dead carcass came up again. I decided to give it a try since we had plenty. A trip to the base recycling center provided some nine-foot galvanized steel fence posts, and using skills acquired during Squadron Officer's School project X, we lashed together three tripods. We persuaded our skeptical but open-minded airfield manager to allow us to place our tripods around the local raven congregation area under the approach end of Runway 30. We suspended one-each dead raven upside down a foot below the apex of each tripod, where it was free to blow around with the wind as a warning to other ravens.

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The next morning we arrived at dawn with binoculars (and shotguns) to observe the daily raven arrival from the landfill. (Incidentally, the previous morning we went through a whole box of shotgun shells from the same location.) The ravens flew in over the tripods, circled a few times, and flew on. Amazingly, this was repeated every day over the next month and we never saw another raven in the area again. The ravens found another open field to congregate in away from the local flight path, where we allowed them to socialize unmolested. At the end of April, the ravens eventually stopped showing up altogether, as predicted by the biologists.

The tripods were an easy fix. They were easy to construct, easy to set up, and could be moved without acquiring a CE work order. The galvanized steel fence posts provided more than enough weight and strength, preventing them from blowing over in strong gusts (we had gusts up to 50 knots one day). A resident coyote did manage to dine on one of the suspended fresh carcasses. However, we hung the next one up a bit higher and didn't have any more problems. I don't know how high a coyote can jump, but ten-foot poles instead if nine-foot poles may be a better option.