Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Bird strikes can be costly or even deadly, especially with aircraft. Therefore, the NWRC has a branch that works with NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the USDA to study bird-strike mitigation. Small birds generally do not cause much harm unless they are in a big group. Larger birds, like turkey vultures and pelicans, can do significant damage. Starlings, which fly in large formations, are sixth on the list of bird strikes, but it only took one or two Canadian geese to make Captain Sullenberger land his plane in the Hudson River (191). However, white-tailed deer are in more collisions with aircraft than many birds, interfering with planes during takeoff, landing, and taxiing (191). To investigate the reasons for deer collisions, the author tags along with Travis DeVault, a wildlife biologist with NASA’s Plum Brook Station.

DeVault studies the so-called “deer in the headlights” phenomenon, where deer see an oncoming object and freeze instead of getting out of the way, especially when the object is as large as an aircraft. Birds and mammals maintain a “spatial margin of safety” (193), an assessment of how far away a predator is and how fast it’s moving, giving them a “flight initiation distance” (FID), the closest point at which they can safely flee.