Conversation[img]2012q1/ct_etoefm_etoeflistz_0186_20121[/img] [br] Listen again

W: Dr. Marshall?
M: Hello, Gloria. Is it ... uh ... you wanted to talk about your research?
W: Yes. Is this a good time?
M: Sure, sure. How’s it coming along? You’re studying goose populations, right’?
W: That’s right. Well, I was anyway. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, I think I want to go in a different direction.
M: Oh...?
W: You see ... it’s like this. I’ve done a lot of Internet searches, and I’ve, uh, come up with some articles about geese, mostly about problems in urban areas, like city parks. But there was this one story that kind of got me off in a different direction. I found out about this accident that happened in Alaska when some geese got sucked into an airplane.
M: Really? When did that happen?
W: About six years ago. It was a pretty bad accident, too. It was a military jet, and several geese were sucked into two of the engines right after takeoff. The jet crashed, and the whole crew was killed.
M: Birds and planes don’t mix—hat’s for sure.
W: For sure. Well, anyway this article got me thinking about birds and plane accidents, so I started ... uh ... researching that, and I found out it’s a pretty serious problem around airports.
M: Hmm. I can see why.
W: It’s a big problem especially if the airport is surrounded by bird habitat, like wheat fields or wetlands. It’s a big problem that I never knew about before. And then I learned about this program that uses biology to solve the problem.
M: Oh? How so?
W: Well, the air force figured out that the right kind of bird can keep the wrong kind of bird away, so they started using peregrine falcons to patrol the runways. This one air force base used to shoot the birds that were always hanging around the runway. Mostly it was geese and ducks, because it’s near a wetland. But now, since they started the falcon program, and since falcons are predators, there haven’t been any bird- aircraft collisions that required any repairs!
M: That’s amazing! Well, not really, when you consider the peregrine falcon’s reputation as a predator. They can exceed 200 miles per hour in a dive—faster than any other living creature. I imagine just the sight of these birds is enough to discourage any other birds from coming anywhere near the airfield.
W: It’s true. The falcons and their trainers patrol the runways several times a day, during the lulls between takeoffs and landings. And after six months of falcon protection, they found that the cost of the program itself was only seven percent of the amount they’d been spending on bird-airplane damage.
M: So, the benefits of this natural method of bird control are obvious.
W: Right. The falcons get the credit for keeping the geese and the ducks away. It’s an interesting solution to the problem, I mean, adding a predator to change the biology of the runway.
M: Well, I think your research has taken a very meaningful turn. You’re still studying problem geese, but you’ve just found an interesting angle in the way the problem’s being dealt with. Keep going with it.
W: Oh, good. I’m glad you think it’s OK. Thanks, Dr. Marshall. I appreciate your time.
M: All right. Good luck.