Do we really have to wait for a few more crashes.. not "miraculously" without loss of life like this one, but wiping out 150-odd people (another 320 or 737) or more than 300 people (7*7, A330... ) and maybe another hundred or so on the ground, before anything is done?
Removing one of the "clear and present dangers" in the form of bird "sanctuaries" within a couple of miles of LGA is fairly straightforward. Moving LGA, JFK and Newark, plus the New York metropolis, is not.
The birds have plenty of other places to go. New York does not.
To "protect" a few thousands birds (those in the area) we now daily put how many people at risk?
CJ
Your suggestion sounds as simplistic as putting screens in front of engines. The practicality and method vs effect is what always makes life difficult for us humans who try to fool with mother nature.
I'm all for some surgical intrusion for a small effect overall (we reduce 1 out of 500 bird strikes in the new york area), but let's not fool ourselves that it will amount to hill of beans in the worldwide risk.
We still don't know where in hell those birds came from and whether or not they were on the visa waiver program or not. If we can identify the birds and their likely takeoff and landing points then we might have a chance of doing something as practical as closing down a runway at certain times of the year. You try fooling with mother nature and she will beat you every time by simply moving in a new species of bird and more of them.
I for one was pretty happy about JFK, after the DC10 accident in 1975 trading off a 5-7 lb great black back gull problem for a 1. lb smaller gull and more of them. Of course they still damage a lot of planes but at least we don't take out multiple engines at the same time.
With the accident on this thread we still don't know the particulars of how big or how many birds and how much damage to the engines. When all of this becomes known then we can start searching for practical recommendations.