Moose loose on the runway
By Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Busy Fort Nelson airport seeks funding to keep moose and other animals at bay. “The moose are loose. So are the black bears, elk, white-tailed deer, and pretty much any other critter that wanders out from the northern B.C. wilderness and onto Northern Rockies Regional Airport in Fort Nelson,” Pynn said. He interviewed airport manager Jim Ogilvie who confirmed that “There’s lots of wildlife up here. I’ve seen moose right up at the terminal building and deer right on the apron. It’s indicative of the country we’re in.” Pynn said the issue is fencing, though we do have fenced lines paralleling the Airport road and some of the periphery. The latest wildlife incident occurred Thursday morning when a Transport Canada turbo-prop Beech C90 airplane conducted a missed approach due to a moose on the runway, Pynn noted. Federal officials were there to examine remedial work done at the airport in the summer related to soil contamination. An airport employee was dispatched to clear the moose away, but a helicopter did the job before that was necessary. Typically, the airport uses “bangers and screamers” to chase animals off the runway, Ogilvie noted. “It probably happens daily,” he said. “We don’t see what happens at night, of course. We just come in the morning, there is snow on the ground, and tracks across the runway.” The airport has sought federal funding for three-metre-high fencing for several years but “we keep getting stymied…it’s been going around in circles,” he said, estimating perimeter fencing would cost more than $1 million. “We’ve never had an animal strike, but we’ve had missed approaches, where planes had to pull away and go around.” He warned there is always the risk that a plane committed to landing could hit an animal, with serious consequences.
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