Apparently, birds that want to take down airplanes at SeaTac airport have got a big job ahead of them. The airport has a wildlife biologist on staff who not only plants things that birds don’t want to land on and covers the water with nets, but actively goes out of the way to harass any intrepid birds out of the immediate airspace:

Osmek uses a laser with a scope on it to shine a green light near birds. The light flashing near the birds mimics a predator stalking them, Osmek says, and usually causes them to take flight. For more persistent opponents, Osmek reaches into the deep arsenal of what he calls his “pyrotechnics.”

They are explosive shells that he uses to ward off birds — sometimes large flocks of them — entering airspace near the airport’s three runways. Osmek fires the shells with a variety of pistols or a shotgun. Some boom loudly, and others scream into the sky before blowing up into puffs of smoke.

One projectile travels up to 1,200 feet before exploding like a thunderclap. It is intended to ward off high-flying birds like hawks or eagles. Osmek says the pyrotechnics only scare the birds and do not harm them [CNN].

In all the time I’ve spent at the airport, I’ve never heard any gunshots or explosions, and this may be the first time in my life I’ve ever been disappointed by a lack of gunfire. On top of all of that, the airport has a fancy radar that helps figure out exactly where and what sort the birds are and how high they’re flying.

Of course, none of this is very helpful once the airplane gets a little ways away from the airport, but as a person who is terrified of birds anyway I am very pleased to find that SeaTac is doing their best to make sure that the awful things don’t cause my untimely death on their watch.