“They are high-level athletes”: at Nantes airport, birds of prey work for travelers

At the airport, security is not just a matter of passing through gates or on board planes. When approaching runways, whether taking off or landing, pilots particularly fear what is called, in the jargon, “the animal peril”that is to say the chance encounter with an animal, most often flying. According to the Ministry of Ecology (new window), “800 animal encounters are recorded in France each year in civil aviation”of which 15% are judged “serious” because “resulting in traffic delays”even “to more or less significant damage to the cell and reactors”. As a result, Nantes airport has had its own falconry for seven years, in order to reduce this risk as much as possible.

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The challenge there is greater than elsewhere, the second ornithological reserve in France, Lake Grand-Lieu, being located less than ten kilometers from the runways where 120 planes take off or land daily. Last year, 12 collisions of this type were recorded on site. A lesser evil. “Today, in Nantes-Atlantique, we have between 10 and 15 collisions per year but, before 2017, it was roughly double”indicates to TF1, in the 1 p.m. news report visible at the top of this article, Thibaut Jung, head of the security and risk management department of the terminal, the only one in France to have resident birds of prey. “You have to live with these birds, morning, noon and night, it never stops. They are high-level athletes, so we can understand that not all airports want to go down this path”adds the manager.

“Like us, he has his moods”

Four Harris's hawks, a species with a keen hunting instinct but known to be docile, are part of this airport's scarer team. Anthony Renaud, one of the three employees responsible for training them and watching over them, weighs them every morning at 10 a.m., in effect like athletes. “There we see that Tucuman weighs 976 gramshe shows our camera. Its flight weight is between 950 and 1000. So it will be able to fly normally. For a bird that barely weighs a kilo, that’s a range of 50 grams.” An essential range: if its weight is too high, the buzzard may decide not to fly, because it will not be hungry, whereas if, conversely, its weight is insufficient, it may be too weak to fly.

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“It is a living being and, like us, it has its moodsalso wants to recall Anthony Renaud, while he takes Tucuman one last time into the aviary before taking her out. Sometimes he will be more tired or more talkative. So from time to time, you have to make sure that the bird is receptive before going to fly.” The rest of the day consists of patrolling along the six kilometers of tracks, in constant communication with the control tower, the bird firmly attached to the leather glove of its falconer, as it would have done on a cactus in its habitat natural, on the American continent, but here on the lookout for common cranes in full migration. “It's a low-flying birdcontinues the trainer. He leaves from the point, he makes a visual flight and he doesn't go very high. He really goes for the bird we want.” In January, a fifth raptor will complete this innovative device: a saker falcon, a high-flying raptor rising higher and attacking in a dive, unlike the buzzard.