Bird-brained cabbies are illegally feeding geese, gulls and pigeons at Kennedy Airport, boosting the risk of flocks flying into the paths of jets.
And other than posting signs that are routinely ignored, the Port Authority does little to enforce its rules against bird-feeding, taxi drivers said.
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“This happens all the time,” said a PA taxi-dispatch supervisor who did not give his name. “Sometimes, guys eat their lunch and just toss out the bag in the lot between taxi cabs.”
“Some guys who don’t eat their roll or bread just feed it all to the birds,” said driver Cliff Adler. “Giant seagulls, pigeons and geese swoop down.
“I have been telling people for years, but a lot of them just laugh in my face.”
Banning airport bird feeding is critical to preventing bird strikes like the one that caused US Airways Flight 1549 to ditch in the Hudson River on Jan. 15 after taking off from La Guardia Airport, wildlife experts say.
A big electronic sign warns cabbies heading into the Kennedy taxi holding area about the agency’s rules against feeding birds.
“No exceptions,” the sign says.
PA spokesman Pasquale DiFulco said police do issue summonses to drivers seen feeding birds.
“It is certainly something we strongly discourage,” he said. “Obviously, it is prohibited.”
Rules banning bird feeding in the taxi lots and elsewhere at the airport must be rigidly enforced, says Steven Garber, a biologist who once ran the PA’s wildlife-mitigation program.
“It’s the Port Authority’s job to constantly hammer these guys and let them know they can’t do it,” said Garber, who wrote about bird-feeding and trash problems in taxi holding lots in a 1996 report.
Until the mid-1990s, JFK had several taxi holding lots scattered around the airport grounds. They were consolidated in the lot used today, partly to monitor cabbies’ littering and bird feeding.
One driver feeding a few birds quickly draws a flock, Garber said.
“When they see some birds, that draws in more birds,” he explained. “These birds can see from miles away.”