Redmond Municipal Airport has osprey nest platform removed due to safety concerns

(Update: Adding comments from Redmond Municipal Airport Director Zachary Bass)

Concern of bird strikes causing flight risks -- and danger to the birds as well

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The Redmond Municipal Airport recently had an osprey nest removed from a location near the end of an airport runway. The airport tells us it was done for safety reasons, as part of a wildlife mitigation plan. 

"As most people realize, you know, bird strikes are a serious issue with aviation," Redmond Airport Director Zachary Bass said Tuesday. "And so the airport does its best to mitigate those problems. We don’t want them to occur.”

As part of the Redmond airport's wildlife mitigation program, a biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Airport Wildlife Hazards Program and the Federal Aviation Administration do a safety inspection every year.

Part of the effort is to make sure there's no open water or fruit-bearing plants near the airport, attracting migrating birds, which can threaten flight safety and lead to dangerous consequences.

According to Bass, the osprey nest was located about a half-mile from the end of the main runway, by the Deschutes County Fairgrounds, and posed a serious safety concern, when it comes to flight paths.

The nesting platform was within a flight path, lying directly under the line of approach for aircraft.

The osprey weren’t in the nest at the time it was removed. 

“In that space where the nest was, you cannot build something over 45 feet as a structure," Bass said. "So it’s really right on that approach. It was a hazardous place for that platform -- and for those birds to be for their own sakes, too.”

Bass said ospreys are ranked the eighth-most dangerous bird to aviation, and they're difficult to relocate.

Pacific Power handled the nest's removal, because the company owned the pole holding the nest. Now Pacific Power, the USDA biologist and the airport are looking for an alternative location for the nest.

The issue of birds living near or on airport property has drawn more scrutiny amid several recent incidents around the country of bird strikes causing serious flight issues.

A critic of the recent Redmond nest move claimed the nest had been there for 25 years, though it was moved once about 100 feet about a decade ago. She said ospreys mate for life and had not caused any issues. 

Since the nesting platform had been in the same place for years, and so has the airport, you may be wondering: Why the move now?

“There's growth we’ve seen in both commercial traffic passengers and our operations with general aviation, so we’ve grown 100 percent in the last five years," Bass said. "So although always a hazard, that nest -- because of our growth, it just makes it more of a hazard."

Bass emphasized that the relocation of the nest is not just for the safety of the public, but also for the birds themselves.