Hashtag AAWHG 2022 Forum

Now that I’ve had a week to come down from an enormous couple of days at the Australian Aviation Wildlife Hazard Group’s (AAWHG) 2022 Forum, I thought I would share some of my highlights . The AAWHG Forum is the biennial migration of all manner of wildlife hazard management practitioners, researchers, consultants and stakeholders into a select location to discuss, present and chat about anything that relates to the intersection of aircraft and wildlife. But I haven’t the time to give you all a play by play. Instead, I’d like to share some of my bigger “take aways” and one big criticism.

Send in the Nerds

Any expert who can make “watching grass grow” an exciting prospect is worth listening to. Nick Bloor, from IVM Group, presented on his work with Darwin International Airport and the management of wildlife from the very centre of the food web. Even though each facet of WHM is in its own way diverse and habitat management is no different, the IVM approach to minimising the attractiveness of grasslands is like watching a grand master play chess.

Nick also presented on this work at last year’s online forum which you can watch here:

The amazing duo, Drs Carla Dove & Rebecca Johnson, from the Smithsonian were, as always, inspiring and informative. The work of this institution not only benefits the United States but helps out any other country looking to build their capabilities. The intricacy involved in these techniques is mind-boggling and honestly, I can’t get over the fact that I’ll be visiting the Smithsonian in a couple of weeks (more to come on that, later).

Mostly “borrowed” from the SI webpage , except the atrium pic which came from Alex Proimos

Back to some science that is close to my heart, Dr Xiaoyu Wu from Griffith University impressed with his novel analysis for existing data. Wu has been using machine learning and weather radar data to identify relationships between wildlife presence and wildlife strikes. The results area still in the early stages as it takes some significant computation power to mash through the data. I’m hoping that Wu gets access to some serious processing power in the near future.

I loved this presentation in particular and enjoyed connecting with Wu. His overall approach to aviation research beyond this particular project is commendable. Wu has launched a online seminar series for aviation researchers that is worth a look - see the Scientist with Wings.

I was also keenly interested in Wu’s research because I have also been working with machine learning to uncover secrets in existing data. In a nutshell, with more information coming soon, I trained a machine learning model on US wildlife strike data to tell me how much wildlife strikes cost in Australia. With my PhD supervisory team and Jason Ryan, we have pulled together some preliminary results that need a little more refinement before we can publish officially (sorry, for the tease but more information will be coming out soon).

The Interlopers, I mean, International Guests

It was great to have a whole bunch of international guests both presenting and attending. We had two excellent presentations from our neighbours, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Indonesia and a couple more great presentations from representatives from the United States.

Mike Weir provided an overview of the NZAWHG’s recent work which includes a pretty flashy website - check it out. He also presented on Christchurch Airport’s WHM activities which leverages community relationships, in particular, when it comes to pest species that have a broader social impact. These themes ran through Achmad Sadikin Abdurachman’s presentation of Indonesia’s efforts to establish a national committee and engage with local government organisations.

Sadikin appears to be a visual thinker and his visualisations really helped me comprehend the complexity of the task he is undertaking. While he was unable to present in person, Sadikin provided a recorded presentation and colleagues from Indonesia supported him during the Q&A session. I enjoyed reconnecting with some of Indonesia’s DGCA personnel that I had the pleasure of presenting to over ten years ago.

One of Sadikin’s many great visualisations

Gary Cooke, from the World Birdstrike Association, presented on a couple of important perspectives. Obviously, the need for international coordination and in this area we outlined recent and coming WBA initiatives. The WBA website has some great information on it from recent forums and older events held under the IBSC banner. It is also an important time to engage with the WBA as the organisation’s mission and statutes are under review with the goal to take the association to the next level. Gary also added to the pilot’s perspective which was discussed a couple of times, most notably during the panel sessions (see below).

Also from the US, John Weller, of the Federal Aviation Administration, gave two presentations - both highly informative and entertaining. In the first, John provided an overview of the US WHM regulatory approach and while that may sound boring to you, I ate it up (might have something to do with my day job). On the second day, he took a higher level view and talked about ICAO SARPs and GM including his leadership of the project to update the IBIS Manual. This is a project very closely aligned with my PhD research project.

For the non regulatory standards officers in the room, John had a tonne of anecdotes and stories from the regulations and advisory material in action. He also threw down some pretty heavy criticism of the UK’s “mandatory” reporting system ;) maybe some UK representatives should attend the next forum to defend their honour (Nick?).

The Panels

The Forum saw two panel sessions. The first saw a diverse group of pilots discussing the impact of and return from COVID-19 as well as general comments regarding training for air crew and effective communication of wildlife hazards. With respect to the COVID issue, the diversity of operating environments saw a range of observations from the panel members most panel members not identifying any potential adverse impact on wildlife strike rates. This observation was also made by John Weller and I have noted some areas of the industry not finding a change through the COVID-19 impacted period in opposition to my own research. I think this is a testament to the range of impacts COVID-19 lockdowns and downturns had on regions, locations and airports.

The issue of training had me a little confused. The panel, generally, saw the need for pilot training on hazard identification/response and lamented the lack of a mandated requirement. Yet, panel members were mostly senior/management pilots with influence on the system and I couldn’t help but wonder why a regulatory edict was required to implement a safety measure that was considered necessary. In a modern, SMS-based world, operators shouldn’t need a “thou shall” to address an indentified risk. And as I commented to other attendees, does the industry really want the regulator setting the standard? It would likely lead to a one-size fits all approach - the antithesis of a risk-based SMS approach.

The need for standardised communication was also brought up in the second panel, which was made up of representatives from ATC (civil and military) and major airlines. I didn’t take detailed notes but everyone sounded ready to relay and receive good information from airport operators but we seem to be lacking structure. Although, I only mentioned it to a couple of fellow attendees, I can see the need for a Global Reporting Format approach to wildlife hazards. That project, which related to operations on contaminated runways, took a few years but it had to start somewhere. It would be good if we could start a process like this without a precipitating accident.

The Future

In line with the tagline of the forum, a couple of presentations were devoted to looking at the future. Chris Perry offered some insights and some cool videos on the use of Remotely Pilots Aircraft Systems (RPAS or UAV or drones) in WHM. Such systems have capabilities in habitat monitoring, wildlife monitoring, harassment and more.

Ronel Jit explored the impact of wildlife on Advanced Aerial Mobility (AAM or UAM or something else next week). I wrote a general primer on UAM a while back but Ronel has been looking at the specific issue of WHM in the new world of vertiports. It’s a very interesting topic and is going to ramp up the complexity of WHM a great deal. I’m looking forward to going through Ronel’s presentation slides when they are shared to really get into the detail.

And finally, for this section and the forum, Ash Mcalpine and Brian Greeves presented a different approach to risk assessments. Their presentation is based on the work of a global SME group that comes together regularly to collaborate on this and other topics. This new approach seeks to draw in information from multiple sources and then feed it through to decision makers to make good decisions. I can’t wait to read the whitepaper when it comes out from this group.

The BHM World that was (and lost?)

Through his formal presentation, his in-depth responses to questions and more than one chat in the margins, I have never learned so much about the history of wildlife hazard management in Australia before meeting Mr Peter Davidson. Mr Davidson was the founder and head of the CAA (CASA’s predecessor) Bird Hazard Investigation Unit and provided a rich overview of his time leading this unit.

But there is no way I can relay the substance of this history in a blog post. Overall, Mr Davidson gave us:

• personal accounts of very serious wildlife strike events and their aftermath from someone on the ground

• an insight into the challenge of building reporting systems from the ground up and without computers

• a lesson in the need for science to support decisions where risk will persist and how it is still really hard to convince decision makers even with the data in hand

However, while hearing all this, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we had lost some of these things since the time the BHIU was closed down. In the days since, I have tempered that feeling, somewhat, with the acknowledgement that many of the capabilities Mr Davidson described, if not established, still exist, albeit distributed among different organisations.

Regulatory oversight is vested in the CAA successor, CASA, and WHM implementation in aerodrome operators. Highly specialised scientific support can be found in the Australian Museum and other researchers, with an interest in the field, are dotted throughout universities with aviation and ecological programs.

This distribution/decentralisation presents a significant challenge for our industry. But what binds us is the AAWHG and it is vital that we have and maintain a strong, vibrant and active group. The success of this year’s forum is a reassuring sign of its current quality and while we have plenty to be optimistic about, I have a question…

Where was the ATSB?

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) are the agency responsible for collecting wildlife strike reports. They have undertaken periodic reviews and published this data in the past but honestly, the latest revision is a little overdue.

While I understand that there may be challenges to the management of this data, I think pulling back from the AAWHG is not the right thing to do. The AAWHG will only be as strong as its members and that strength in dependent on the support member organisations provide to the representatives they put forward. To have an essential component of our national WHM system not participate (either presenting or attending) is disquieting.

I hope that this is but a blip in their record of support and we will see them active in the AAWHG again soon.