Good news for birds near airports?

From the NY Post 1/23/09 edition:


FORCE IS WITH US
By TOM TOPOUSIS

Geese, beware: The US Air Force is on the way. Air Force brass yesterday offered to give New York one of its cutting-edge bird-detecting radar systems in order to prevent another airline collision like the one that forced a US Airways jet to ditch in the Hudson River last week. EXCLUSIVE: Ace Of Grace Gary Andrews, general manager at radar manufacturer DeTect Inc., said he got a call from the Air Force yesterday telling him to take a radar system slated for Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska and send it instead to New York. "That system is sitting here and it's ready to go," said Andrews, adding that the Air Force has offered to ship the system to the Port Authority at no cost. "I'm convinced that if La Guardia Airport had one of these radar systems, it would have detected the geese and alerted the controllers and pilot in time to avoid the collision," Andrews said of last week's US Airways splash-landing. DeTect's radar is already slated for a test program at Kennedy Airport, where technicians arrived yesterday to begin installing it. With a test already set for Kennedy, an aviation source said it's likely the Air Force's equipment would go to La Guardia. Officials at the Port Authority, which runs La Guardia, JFK and Newark airports, said they were unaware of the Air Force offer late yesterday. "We'll work with them to do what we need to do to expedite the program," said PA spokesman Pasquale DiFulco. Earlier yesterday, PA officials said they had asked the Obama administration to expand the federally sponsored test of the bird-detecting radar from Kennedy to La Guardia and Newark. "The request certainly has merit and we will see if the test can be expanded to include the two other airports in New York," said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters. New York's airports will be the first commercial airports in the nation to use the radar systems, designed to detect flying objects as small as birds and calculate potential collision courses with aircraft nearby. Radar now in use is designed only to track other aircraft. "The US is really moving slow on this," Andrews said of installing the bird-detecting radar that can cost from $500,000 up to $2 million for a large airport. He said airports in Germany, Canada and South Africa have already put the system in place. The bird-detecting radar has been used by the Air Force since 2003. NASA installed two DeTect systems after a vulture hit a space shuttle in 2005. Andrews said the radar has completely eliminated bird strikes at a North Carolina Air Force installation since it was installed in 2003. Before that, bird strikes averaged from four to seven each year. "We could have put this technology in place at every major airport for less than the cost of an airline crash like the one last week," he said. tom.topousis @nypost.com
To sign up for Daily Newsletter Alerts, please visit http://www.nypost.com/php/newsletter/classify_newsletter_clicks.php

The urgency to reconnect children to nature.....

Our youth and children are losing touch with nature...with the rise of the Internet, TV, overexposed media, children have a variety of emotional and health problems affiliated with the lack of exposure to nature.Read this link about why we need to reconnect youth to nature.


http://www.childrenandnature.org/blog/

Conserve EPCAL! Calverton Grasslands threatened

This battle was a pledged cause of the Brooklyn Bird Club team in last May 's birdathon.The club raised 3800.00 dollars .

http://www.calvertongrasslands.org/

Loon deaths in Long Island

More on loons, both Common and Red-throated found dead on eastern end of Long Island beaches

see the link

http://www.easthamptonstar.com/dnn/Home/News/DeathofLoons/tabid/7353/Default.aspx

Boreal Birds conservation predictament

Received from email Boreal songbirds initiative:



Hello,

Didn’t know if you’ve seen this yet, but a new report has come out saying millions of birds, particularly migratory birds, will be killed by tar sands development in Canada. It’s already in close to 50 papers and is becoming quite a big deal. Here’s an article from CBC:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/02/edm-birds-oilsands-report.html

Report page with link to report:
http://www.borealbirds.org/birdstarsands.shtml


I’ve attached two images in case you were thinking about mentioning it in your blog. There’s also a video on YouTube talking about the huge impact the tar sands has on birds, mostly from an interview with Dr. Jeff Wells:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W847iqudLM

If your blog is in HTML you can embed the video into your blog by copying/pasting the code where it says “embed” to the right of the video.

Feel free to call if you have any questions (number below) - hope you find it interesting!

David

_________________________________

David Childs
Online Communications Campaigner
Boreal Songbird Initiative
206.956.9040 (main)
206.905.4801 (direct line)
davidc@borealbirds.org

Sign up for our updates!
http://www.borealbirds.org/signup.shtml

Mercury rising in NY State Bald Eagles

This news piece is from the Nature Conservancy website

http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/science/art26434.html

A new city parks blog

I found this sent to me by the Trust for Public Land

Its a very resourceful blog about urban spaces

http://cityparksblog.org/