We are lucky to be part of a passionate and committed group of professionals in the bird strike industry. The World Birdstrike Association (WBA), for example, just finished up an excellent virtual webinar. Not only are they always great presentations, but I am also excited to see their commitment to improvement. They are doing some internal review of how they ‘do business’, which will result in a process for nominating and electing board members. This is an excellent initiative: the WBA is opening a comment period on the statutes, so keep an eye out on their website for updates.
The Bird Strike Association of Canada released a guidance document on Airport Wildlife Management Technician Knowledge Requirements which is an amazing resource for the industry. It is a comprehensive resource for those looking for guidance on how to achieve compliance (and a little more) in training wildlife management staff. In addition, a small group of professionals from around the world have drafted a template to assess the competency of wildlife management staff. Although this resource is not yet available to all of you, we think it is going to be a benchmark for the industry.
We are proud to support all these organizations and initiatives and to be involved in our industry’s continual improvement. It really does come down to the people whose company you keep. I am impressed by industry’s focus on building and maintaining a supportive culture that strives for improvement, transparency in relationships, and positive communication. We face dynamic and complex issues when managing wildlife, and our success is built on our industry’s culture which guarantees that varied stakeholders are involved to achieve conservation and aviation risk management outcomes.