Proxies for success: Targeted hazing reduces wildlife use of runway‐adjacent areas and management effort at an airport

Wildlife–aircraft collisions represent a major risk to human safety, wildlife, and aircraft. Active animal hazard management occurs at many airports, but the effectiveness of interventions is rarely analysed.

We quantified temporal trends in management effort and effectiveness over 3 years at an airport in Point Cook, Victoria, Australia. For all hazing events (the non‐lethal application of escalating sensory stimuli to displace wildlife from runway‐adjacent critical areas to reduce the likelihood of wildlife–aircraft collisions), we recorded the hazing escalation level applied and wildlife responses to hazing, including non‐responses. We conducted monthly surveys across the airport to quantify numbers, use of critical areas, species richness and diversity. Desirable outcomes were reduced numbers, species richness or diversity, displacement away from areas closest to aircraft, and increased responsiveness of wildlife to hazing, thereby reducing management effort. We used Bayesian mixed‐effects models accounting for seasonal variation and day‐level clustering in event‐level hazing models to examine temporal trends in numbers, effort‐standardised counts, hazing and monthly survey metrics for all species and focal species.

Individuals per hazing event, total numbers per monthly survey and diversity remained stable, but hazing events and monthly surveys indicated decreasing use of runway‐adjacent critical areas. The proportions of individuals and hazing events occurring in critical areas decreased, the escalation required to displace wildlife decreased and both pre‐hazing distances and post‐hazing flight distances shortened over time.

These changes imply that management displaced wildlife from the critical areas without reducing their overall use of the airport, suggesting local‐scale rather than broad‐scale displacement. Management efficiency also increased, as lower‐intensity hazing was increasingly sufficient to displace wildlife.

Synthesis and applications . Most wildlife–aircraft collisions occur near airports during take‐off and landing, so reducing wildlife use of runway‐adjacent critical areas provides a practical proxy for exposure to wildlife–aircraft collisions. Routine indicators from hazard management records—the proportion of individuals in critical areas, hazing escalation level and flight distances—captured temporal change in wildlife use of critical areas and management effort, showing that operational datasets can yield management‐relevant insights. Airports could apply similar indicators to assess whether interventions shift wildlife away from critical areas and prioritise low‐intensity, coexistence‐focused management over broad suppression.