As if baggage, security and traffic weren't enough of a hassle for the thousands expected to fly in and out of Raleigh-Durham International Airport this holiday weekend, here's one more thing to worry about: coyotes.
RDU officials have noted a marked increase in recent months in the number of coyotes crossing the paths of taxiing airplanes. The critters can wreak havoc, causing delays in takeoffs and landings. In September, an American Eagle jet struck a coyote on a runway. No one was injured.
"If we didn't have some sort of program in place, they'd be unmanageable," said Michael McElvaney, deputy airport director of operations. "Airports, obviously, have to maintain a safe environment."
RDU workers and federal wildlife managers usually try to scare the coyotes off runways with cap guns or bottle rockets. The airport also just put the final touches on a larger wildlife management plan for the Federal Aviation Administration to review. The proposal recommends a multi-pronged approach, including improved fencing and keeping grasses trimmed low, to manage coyotes and other wildlife on the 5,000-acre airport property.
Biologists in North Carolina hesitate to put a number on the coyote population in the state. But they note that since a migration of coyotes from west to east began in the late 1980s, the animals are now in all 100 North Carolina counties.
"Just like bears, they are good at dispersing into new areas," said Colleen Offenbuttel, the black bear and furbearer biologist for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
Packs of coyotes, whether small or large, tend to go where food is available, Offenbuttel said. And even though coyotes in developed areas such as the Triangle have high mortality rates, they compensate for that by having larger litters of pups.
It's not just the coyotes
Though coyotes have been particularly vexing at RDU in recent months, other wildlife can be bothersome, too, officials say. An American Eagle jet hit a fox on a runway recently. Deer, which can jump 7-foot fences, sometimes parade into secure areas. Beavers dam wetlands and create ponds that attract fowl.
And then there are bird strikes, though nothing at RDU as serious as the strike that forced Capt. Chesley Sullenberger's emergency landing of a US Airways flight in New York's Hudson River earlier this year.
Several years ago, after some RDU bird strikes, the FAA told airport officials they needed a wildlife assessment plan. Throughout a year, N.C. State University professors and students combed the woods, fields and waters of the airport land and reported their findings in a $43,000 assessment.
Since then, airport managers have tried to keep grasses low to ward off small critters and snakes that attract larger prey. They've put nylon wires over ponds to steer birds elsewhere. They've cleared underbrush and tried to close burrows under fences.
As a last resort
When it becomes necessary, they set traps or even come after the coyotes with firearms. Eight coyotes have been trapped at RDU in the past five months. And in October, when a Southwest Airlines flight was slowed by a coyote on a runway, workers with guns arrived in a white van to apprehend the animal.
The wily coyote outran the pursuers.
