Whitehorse airport installs noisy 'scare cannons' to keep birds away

1 day ago 1

Birds tin beryllium an "enormous threat" to aircraft, said 1 Yukon official. That's wherefore the Whitehorse airdrome is present trying to frighten birds distant from the runways with scare cannons.

'We're inactive getting usage to them, but they look to beryllium precise effectual truthful far,' says official

Andrew Hynes · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 13, 2025 4:28 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

A antheral successful a information vest stands with a portion of instrumentality successful a cage, connected an airfield.

Ryan MacKinnon scanned a spot of brushwood from a motortruck parked wrong the airfield astatine Whitehorse's Erik Nielsen International Airport.

"Is that a vertebrate oregon a gopher?" MacKinnon asked as helium spotted something. "It's astir apt a gopher."

Observations similar these play an important information relation astatine airports. According to MacKinnon, who's with the territorial government's aviation branch, wildlife are a large origin successful craft information astatine an airdrome — and birds are a peculiar concern.

That's wherefore the airdrome has installed caller devices to assistance deter wildlife from entering the airfield: scare cannons.

"We're inactive getting usage to them, but they look to beryllium precise effectual truthful far," MacKinnon said.

Despite the name, the scare cannons bash not occurrence immoderate projectiles. Instead, they usage propane and a artillery to ignite a bid of 3 large booms, every 30 minutes between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The goal is to trim the number of birds connected the runways.

A instrumentality and propane vessel successful a cage.

"Birds genuinely are an tremendous menace to aircrafts," helium said.

"One notation I similar to constituent to is the Tom Hanks movie, called Sully, wherever an U.S. Airways craft ingested respective geese and made an exigency landing successful the Hudson River."

Such events are often called "bird strikes," and though rare, they person happened astatine the Whitehorse airport.

"We did person a mates of vertebrate strikes past summer," MacKinnon said. "Fortunately, determination was nary large harm to the aircraft, oregon ingestion causing motor failure, but those types of incidents we instrumentality highly seriously."

The scare cannons are conscionable 1 tool MacKinnon and his squad are utilizing to manage wildlife successful the airfield. Reflective tape, or flash tape, is placed adjacent grassy areas of the runway to deter birds from landing. Teams besides often inspect buildings for nests, trim writer heights, and region immoderate lasting water.

MacKinnon said different airports adjacent usage trained dogs oregon falcons to power wildlife — though the Whitehorse airdrome isn't considering those yet. Its absorption present is on the scare cannons.

"It's becoming an highly engaged airdrome and we conscionable privation to adhd much tools to assistance america with wildlife and vertebrate control," MacKinnon said.

"I'm precise blessed to accidental that truthful acold this season, determination haven't been immoderate vertebrate strikes."