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Bird Control Program Forward Landfill—Manteca, California _ Gull Behavior at Night Gulls spend the night at communal roosts on large bodies of water where they occur in dense flocks. The use of the night roosts is traditional with particular roosts being used year after _ year. Gulls do not feed at inland terrestrial areas at night and they do not feed at landfills at night. The latter fact has been demonstrated at many landfills. The best documented case is the Atlantic County Utilities Authority where waste is disposed of at night. There has not been a — single gull seen at that coastal landfill during over 13 years of operation (Davis and Hixon 2011). Because of this nocturnal behavior, it is not necessary to control gulls at night at the Forward Landfill. — History of Bird Strikes at Stockton Metropolitan Airport (SCK) The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains an extensive data base documenting wildlife/aircraft collisions at airports throughout the U.S. The FAA data base includes records beginning in 1990 and contained over 142,603 strike records by the end of 2013. As of 31 _ December 2013, the data base contained records of 45 bird strikes associated with the Stockton Airport. It is well known that not all bird strikes are reported but the important strikes (those that affect flight, cause damage, etc.) are more likely to be reported than are strikes that cause no damage and often are not even detected by the flight crew. It is apparent that the airport has been much more diligent in reporting strikes in the past three years with 25 (56%) of the 45 strikes since 1990 recorded during that three-year period compared to 20 strikes (44%) in the previous 21 year — period. A summary printout of the 45 strikes at the Stockton Metropolitan Airport is included as Table 5. The Forward Landfill has been operating during the entire 24-year period covered by the FAA data base. For the 20 years before the fall and winter of 2010-2011, there was no bird control program in place at the landfill. Therefore, if the landfill was attracting birds that were a — threat to aircraft safety, the strike data from the airport should reflect that risk. Gulls are the group of birds that are attracted to the landfill and could pose a threat to aircraft using the Stockton Airport. The 45 reported strikes (Table 5) are examined in the following paragraphs. Twenty-seven of the strikes involved identified birds that were not gulls. A twenty- eighth strike involved a gull carcass that was found on the airport on 28 October 2000; it was assumed to have been struck by an aircraft. Of the 17 strikes that involved unknown birds, 8 involved small birds that could not have been gulls. Of the 9 remaining strikes, 4 involved "medium" or "large" unknown birds and 5 involved "unknown bird or bat". In theory, any of these 9 strikes could have involved gulls. Two of the four incidents involving birds of unknown size involved military aircraft in _ June 2006. This is a period when gulls are not present in the Stockton area; thus these two strikes undoubtedly did not involve gulls. A third strike occurred at night (8 April 2013) when gulls have returned to the coast. A fourth strike occurred on 8 October 1991 when a military KC135 struck a bird on its landing roll at SCK. It is possible that the bird may have LCHM 11 30 December 2013