Robot disguised as a coyote or fox will scare wildlife away from runways at Alaska airport

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Robot disguised as a coyote or fox will scare wildlife away from runways at Alaska airport

2024-03-30 05:11 Last Updated At：05:21

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A headless robot about the size of a labrador retriever will be camouflaged as a coyote or fox to ward off migratory birds and other wildlife at Alaska's second largest airport, a state agency said.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has named the new robot Aurora and said it will be based at the Fairbanks airport to “enhance and augment safety and operations," the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The transportation department released a video of the robot climbing rocks, going up stairs and doing something akin to dancing while flashing green lights.

Those dancing skills will be put to use this fall during the migratory bird season when Aurora imitates predator-like movements to keep birds and other wildlife from settling near plane infields.

The plan is to have Aurora patrol an outdoor area near the runway every hour in an attempt to prevent harmful encounters between planes and wildlife, said Ryan Marlow, a program manager with the transportation department.

The robot can be disguised as a coyote or a fox by changing out replaceable panels, he said.

“The sole purpose of this is to act as a predator and allow for us to invoke that response in wildlife without having to use other means,” Marlow told legislators last week.

The panels would not be hyper-realistic, and Marlow said the agency decided against using animal fur to make sure Aurora remained waterproof.

The idea of using a robot came after officials rejected a plan to use flying drones spraying a repellent including grape juice.

Previous other deterrent efforts have included officials releasing pigs at a lake near the Anchorage airport in the 1990s, with the hope they would eat waterfowl eggs near plane landing areas.

The test period in Fairbanks will also see how effective of a deterrent Aurora would be with larger animals and to see how moose and bears would respond to the robot, Marlow told the Anchorage newspaper.

Fairbanks “is leading the country with wildlife mitigation through the use of Aurora. Several airports across the country have implemented robots for various tasks such as cleaning, security patrols, and customer service,” agency spokesperson Danielle Tessen said in an email to The Associated Press.

In Alaska, wildlife service teams currently are used to scare birds and other wildlife away from runways with loud sounds, sometimes made with paintball guns.

Last year, there were 92 animal strikes near airports across Alaska, including 10 in Fairbanks, according to an Federal Aviation Administration database.

Most strikes resulted in no damage to the aircraft, but Marlow said the encounters can be expensive and dangerous in the rare instance when a bird is sucked into an engine, potentially causing a crash.

An AWACS jet crashed in 1995 when it hit a flock of geese, killing 24 people at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage.

If the test proves successful, Marlow said the agency could send similar robots to smaller airports in Alaska, which could be more cost effective than hiring human deterrent teams.

Aurora, which can be controlled from a table, computer or on an automated schedule, will always have a human handler with it, he said. It can navigate through rain or snow.

The robot from Boston Dynamics cost about $70,000 and was paid for with a federal grant.

Tropical low tracks west across Australian east coast leaving 1 dead and several injured

2025-03-09 08:14 Last Updated At：08:20

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Flooding rains lashed the Australian east coast even though it avoided the destructive winds of its first tropical cyclone in 51 years, officials said Saturday. One person was confirmed dead and several were injured.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred had been expected to become the first cyclone to cross the Australian coast near the Queensland state capital of Brisbane, Australia’s third-most populous city, since 1974.

But it weakened Saturday to a tropical low, which is defined as carrying sustained winds of less than 63 kph (39 mph).

The cyclone’s remnants crossed the coast late Saturday 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of Brisbane and will continue to track west across the inland bringing heavy rain, the Bureau of Meteorology said in a statement.

“The real threat now is from that locally heavy-to-intense rainfall, which may lead to flash and riverine flooding,” bureau manager Matt Collopy said.

Cyclones are common in Queensland’s tropical north but are rare in the state’s temperate and densely populated southeast corner that borders New South Wales state.

A 61-year-old man who disappeared in a flooded river near the New South Wales town of Dorrigo was confirmed the first casualty of the crisis when his body was recovered on Saturday, police said.

Two military trucks involved in the emergency response rolled over in the town of Tregeagle in New South Wales on Saturday, injuring 13 defense personnel, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Sunday.

One truck left the road and rolled several times into a paddock and the other truck tipped on its side while swerving to avoid a collision.

Of the 32 Brisbane-based military personnel in the trucks, six sustained serious injuries, he said. The injured were taken to hospitals and all were expected to recover, Defense Minister Richard Marles said.

A woman sustained minor injuries when an apartment building lost its roof in the Queensland border city of Gold Coast on Friday, police said. The woman was one of 21 people who were evacuated from the building.

A couple sustained minor injuries when a tree crashed through the ceiling of their Gold Coast bedroom during strong winds and rain on Thursday night, officials said.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said 330,000 homes and businesses had lost power due to the storm since Thursday. No other natural disaster had created a bigger blackout in the state’s history. New South Wales reported as many as 45,000 premises without electricity on Saturday. But tens of thousands had been reconnected by late in the day, officials said.

Rivers were flooding in Queensland and New South Wales after days of heavy rain, the meteorology bureau said. The dead man recovered on Saturday was the only fatality among 36 flood rescues carried out by emergency teams in northern New South Wales in recent days, most involving vehicles attempting to cross floodwaters, police said.