The Prince George Airport Authority has earned a more-than $30,000 rebate from FortisBC for becoming more energy efficient - and some of that money will go towards a wildlife research project at the airport.
A cheque for $33,452 was presented to PGAA operations manager Jamie Smith on Monday morning, representing the savings on energy costs generated by replacing its boilers with new energy-efficient models, a roughly $400,000 bill.
One of the beneficiaries will be the University of Northern British Columbia wildlife and fisheries program.
Since 2009, UNBC researchers have been deploying "camera traps" to track the activities of animals with an eye to improving systems to keep wildlife off airport grounds.
What has been learned has been helpful, said UNBC student Matt Scheideman.
"The airport enhanced their perimeter fencing - they made it stronger and impermeable to large animals," Scheideman said. "We also added a one-way gate that allowed animals to go out of the airport but they could not enter through it."
The upgrades, introduced in 2011, have been effective in keeping deer and moose out of harm's way. Since that work has been done, there has been only one case of a moose wandering onto the property, "but the airport staff were able to quickly get it back out."
Bears can still dig underneath the fence, "but they're not a big concern as of right now because they're just in lower numbers."
Five of the camera traps are in place around the airport and will continue to be monitored.
Scheideman said PGAA has funded the wildlife research program for about 10 years and the camera traps are just one of the projects.
