Wildlife Identification Techniques

Wildlife Strike Identification

The FAA and the United States Air Force jointly sponsored a 5 year program to develop improved identification techniques for aircraft bird strike remains. The focus of the research was the development of a DNA-based identification for bird strike remains that lack morphological evidence for feather comparisons. Identification via DNA sequencing is the "gold" standard, but other cheaper and faster methods will likely emerge as a result of the database development.

Work is being conducted by the Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Laboratory and has recently been extended through Fiscal Year 2013. Rapid isolation of biological remains in the field is critical, and testing of several user-friendly field collection protocols is being be carried out to determine the highest probability of success.

Valuable Links

• New instructional video for collecting bird remains
• The Internet Bird Collection - Bird Photo Database
• The Feather Atlas - National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory Feather Database
• Smithsonian Institution's Feather Lab - Identification of Bird Species from Strike Remains