"Things happened so fast," says Fizer, SkyWest's chief pilot in Salt Lake City. "I remember a blurry thing out of the corner of my eye and then a thud on the nose. It ended up impaling itself on one of my instruments."

Fortunately, he was able to land without instruments. The plane suffered only minor damage, and Fizer was on his way again the next day.

Bird strikes are increasing at airports as passenger numbers climb, the aviation industry installs quieter engines on newer planes and wildlife populations swell. That's why airports such as Salt Lake City International are heeding Federal Aviation Administration calls to stage aggressive wildlife control measures, especially during bird migration seasons.

That season is upon us, says Gib Rokich, an airport duty manager who regularly makes rounds of the airport and its environs to shoo birds - and an occasional deer, fox, dog, skunk and even a cougar - away from the runways.

During the next two months, the canals and wetlands that flank the airport will host an estimated 500,000 wildfowl, elevating the chance of jet engines sucking in birds, and birds crashing into aircraft.

Rokich and his crew will be out from dawn to dusk "hazing" the birds by firing propane cannons, shooting 12-gauge shotguns armed with M-80 firecrackers, launching fireworks-type "screamers" and even shooting paintball guns to keep away pelicans, geese, ducks, gulls, swans, sparrows, starlings, hawks, vultures and any other creature that might wander into the flight path.

It's serious business. Civil aircraft have reported 59,196 wildlife strikes from 1990 to 2004, 57,702 of them birds. The strikes forced 4,699 aircraft either to make precautionary landings, abort takeoffs or experience engine shutdowns, according to FAA statistics.

For the same period, FAA data show reported losses from bird strikes totaled 277,565 hours of aircraft downtime and $181.6 million in monetary losses. Though mammals accounted for only a small fraction of the animal strikes, airlines reported they accounted for 255,455 hours of aircraft downtime and $29.9 million in monetary losses. Even bats have caused problems, resulting in 72 hours of downtime and $3.1 million in losses.

Utah reported 647 bird strikes and 12 run-ins with other animals from 1990 to 2004. Airport officials didn't quantify the financial losses, but noted that no matter what the report says, it's an underestimation. The FAA doesn't require the reports and there is no uniformity across airports. Rokich says only about 20 percent of all bird and animal strikes are reported.

But Salt Lake City International has become so interested in the subject they now report any dead animal found near planes as strikes, and they send off blood swabs and feathers to the Smithsonian Institution, where scientists dedicated to aviation-related bird suppression type the animals' DNA and feathers against a growing aviation-related database.

Balance of nature: Salt Lake City International is next to the Great Salt Lake, surrounded by canals and wetlands, havens for various types of birds. The U.S. Geological Survey says the Great Salt Lake shelters the world's largest migratory staging population of Wilson's phalarope, which number 500,000. The white pelican breeding population of 18,000 is one of the three largest colonies in Western North America. The 160,000 breeding adult California gulls are the most in the world.

Private duck clubs, where marshy ground is nurtured, account for 20,000 nearby acres. The airport itself owns more than 400 acres of wetlands. The nearby Salt Lake County landfill is seagull heaven.

Foxes, while considered a hazard, eat the pocket gophers whose mounds dot the airport's environs. Rokich says he's never gotten a report of coyotes at the airport but wouldn't be surprised if they're lurking about.

"Pilots report all sorts of things - there's a wolf on the runway, there's a fox on the runway, there's a dog on the runway," he says.

A main source of trouble has been the airport's Wingpointe Golf Course water hazards. Fish from the Surplus Canal got into the course pond and attracted large populations of white pelicans and Canada geese. The pond was drained two years ago and now is a sand trap, but the geese persist because they imprint on their birthplace and are drawn back.

"Most waterfowl respond really well to hazing," Rokich says. Not geese. Because explosives tend to throw golfers off their game, bird suppression ordnance on the course is limited to paintball guns.

The paint pellets pack a ping, and while many of them just pop off the birds unbroken, "If you see any green geese around . . . ," Rokich says.

If a bird is really, really stubborn and won't leave, Rokich and his crew have a kill permit.

"But that's a last resort."

Man vs. nature: The FAA wants to curtail wildlife strikes with aircraft by providing practical solutions as well as real-time critical information to pilots and airport managers. The agency has asked airport operators to notify it if land-use changes around airports could create wildlife hazards, and recommends no "wildlife attractants" within 10,000 feet of runways or within five miles of approach or departure corridors.

For many airports, that's impossible.

John F. Kennedy International in New York is on Jamaica Bay, near two national bird refuges and beneath two major bird migration routes. In 1975, a flock of gulls smashed into a Douglas DC-10 on takeoff. The plane crashed and burned, injuring 32 of the 139 passengers. That airport now employs falcons and falconers to keep the gulls under control.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has problems with raptors including red-tailed hawks, Cooper's hawks, kestrels, sharp-shinned hawks, ospreys, bald eagles and turkey vultures. A full-time wildlife biologist is working to capture and relocate all immature and migrant hawks.

About 90 percent of all bird strikes in the United States are by species federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, according to Bird Strike Committee USA.

International cooperation: Each year, public and military officials from around the world gather for the joint conference of Bird Strike Committee USA and Bird Strike Committee Canada. Highlights include scientific presentations on bird behavior, reports on the BIRDRAD and BIRDAR radar detection systems, pyrotechnics training and pleas from the Air Line Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association for greater efforts to control bird strikes and other animal hazards at airports.

At this year's conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, representatives of the two nations proposed a strategic plan to consolidate civil and military efforts to develop a North American bird strike advisory system. The five-year, $16 million budget would only be a starter fund for what the officials called "an evolving project and system."

Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, SkyWest's Tony Fizer, who also flies KUTV's news helicopter, isn't worried. He knows the air-traffic controllers will do their jobs.

"When there are birds in the area," he says, "the tower always tells us."