London Heathrow and many other major international airports employ dedicated wildlife control teams whose sole, full-time job is to aggressively scare birds away from the runways to prevent catastrophic engine strikes.

A closer look

London Heathrow and many other major international airports employ dedicated wildlife control teams whose sole, full-time job is to aggressively scare birds away from the runways to prevent catastrophic engine strikes. These highly trained professionals drive around the tarmac blasting distressed bird calls from truck-mounted speakers, firing blank cartridges from shotguns, and occasionally deploying actual falcons to terrorize the local pigeon population. It is slightly hilarious to think that a multi-billion dollar aviation industry reliant on cutting-edge aeronautical engineering is completely dependent on a guy named Gary driving a pickup truck and yelling at geese so the planes don't fall out of the sky