At airports, keeping wildlife away from flight operations is critical for the safety of aircraft and passengers, and this is no exception at Changi. To this end, Changi Airport Group (CAG) manages such hazards through habitat management, which involves the maintenance of turf, water bodies and vegetation within the aerodrome to reduce its attractiveness to wildlife, as well as and conducting wildlife dispersals.
The dispersals, conducted daily by the Airside Professional Shift Team (APST) ensures that any wildlife hazards in the aerodrome is kept out of aircrafts’ way. From the break of dawn, the APST duty officers conduct patrols of the airfield at regular intervals throughout the day, looking out for birds in the areas around the taxiways and runways, while also remaining vigilant for other non-avian animals that might have wandered into the airfield, like monitor lizards.
With air traffic at Changi anticipated to recover fully to pre-Covid levels this year, this has increased the challenges of managing the coexistence between the airport and wild inhabitants in its surrounds. To help manage the increased challenges, CAG explored with technology and started to trial CCTVs with video analytics to identify wildlife to ensure that they do not establish a permanent presence within the airfield. As duty officers are not able to patrol every corner of the aerodrome all the time, the CCTVs would help to alleviate this challenge. Furthermore, being able to monitor the movements of wildlife also gave the CAG team insights on ways to implement suitable counter-measures, such as covering up gaps which allowed the wildlife entry into the aerodrome.
One of the CCTVs on trial, in Changi’s airside
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Since the start of the trial in November 2023, the video analytics software has shown good promise. Started with the aim to develop video analytics capability to improve the detection accuracy, CAG will continue to improve the system so that it can be a valuable addition to the wildlife management toolbox in future. Â
Besides trialling new technology to monitor non-avian animals, the current array of equipment used to disperse birds safely still works well and continues to be deployed by the duty officers. For birds in the air, the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), a large vehicle-mounted gadget resembling a large speaker, may be used to project sound waves up to a distance of 3km, to frighten them away. 
The LRAD is mounted on the back of a patrol vehicle.
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For birds perched in the surrounds or on the ground, the handheld aerolaser can project a laser beam up to 2.5km away. The laser is harmless to birds and aimed at the ground next to where they perch, so the birds perceive it as a physical danger, and will be spooked away.
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The aerolaser projects a laser beam and scares birds away.
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Ms Yap Xinli, Senior Manager, Airport Operations Planning shared, “With increasing aircraft movements and expansion of the aerodrome, our team needs to continuously innovate and explore new technologies to improve the way we manage wildlife. As it is not possible to totally exclude wildlife from the aerodrome, the combination of detection and dispersal methods greatly helps our wildlife management work. It is also important for us to strike a balance between aviation needs and preserving local bio-diversity in Singapore.
Our end goal is to ensure that flights at Changi can continue to operate with the highest levels of safety, while not causing any harm to the wildlife when managing them,” added Xinli.
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