They Chase Birds So Planes Won’t Crash: How These Dogs Are Keeping Airports Safe

Is That A Dog On The Airfield?

You probably don’t give it a second thought: hundreds of flights a day taking off and landing with barely a bird in sight. But behind the seamless choreography of modern aviation lies a team of unsung heroes — border collies trained to chase wildlife off runways.

Not to mention the surprising driver behind their movements: the weather.

“We’re not just out there chasing birds with dogs,” said Rebecca Gibson, owner of Flyaway Geese, a company that trains working border collies to manage wildlife at airports, business parks, golf courses and even schools. “If you know the science behind it and you use the science behind it, it definitely is the best way to manage these birds in an environmentally friendly way.”

Bird strikes are a real and costly threat to aviation. Even small birds, like doves and pigeons, can force an aircraft out of commission until it's fully inspected. Larger birds, such as geese or even bald eagles, can cause catastrophic engine damage. In fact, the famous "Miracle on the Hudson" in 2009, where a commercial airliner made an emergency landing on the Hudson River, was caused by a flock of geese.

(MORE: These Are America’s Most Turbulent Airports)

To prevent such disasters, Gibson’s border collies are deployed as controlled predators. Their wolf-like body language and focused stare (what handlers call “the eye”) is enough to make birds flee without the dogs needing to make physical contact. But when and where birds show up depends heavily on weather patterns.

“Especially during migratory seasons, we expect for there to be migratory birds moving in front of the front or behind the front,” Gibson explained. “If we've got big weather systems coming in, we can expect to see birds that we may not always see in our area that may have gotten pushed with those weather fronts.”

Air Force bases often use specialized bird radars to track this movement. These radars incorporate weather forecasts to predict when and where bird activity will spike, helping handlers position dogs in high-risk areas at peak times, like an hour before and after sunrise or sunset.

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Weather doesn’t just complicate things for the birds, but for the dogs and their handlers, too. In hot weather, Gibson’s collies don cooling vests, and on asphalt-heavy sites, wear booties to avoid burned paws.

Cold weather, on the other hand, is less of a challenge. “Sometimes the dogs run around the ponds a little bit longer to get their body temperatures up before they get in, but generally they can exist a lot better in the cool weather than they can in the hot.”

(MORE: How Dogs Sense Storms Before We Do)

And while it might sound like these dogs are simply reacting to nature, the system is anything but random. Communication flows between pilots, air traffic controllers, radar systems, and the handlers in the field. “If we're doing our jobs right, one, you won't have birds, and number two, what we do is so fast that you won't even really know what happened,” Gibson points out.

From the behaviors of geese to the grass freshly chopped by airport mowers (which Gibson calls “sushi for birds”), nearly every detail of airport wildlife control is influenced by changing atmospheric conditions. But the goal remains the same: a non-lethal, environmentally responsible way to keep both animals and humans safe, rain or shine.

And for that, you can thank a border collie with its eye on the sky.

Weather.com lead editor Jenn Jordan explores how weather and climate weave through our daily lives, shape our routines and leave lasting impacts on our communities.