On my recent cross country from Mississippi to Wyoming I stopped by Pratt, Kansas for fuel. Their airport diagram is below, with an innocuous note on the left, circled in yellow. Although I’m guessing it’s not unique to aviation, the preponderance of aviation rules are derived, in full or in part, from the mistakes of our brethren. I can’t say for sure, but I can almost say for sure the only reason that note exists is because someone, at some point, mistook the lights of the cattle pens for a runway and either touched down on top of several thousand cattle, or nearly did so.
As a side note, and in defense of that unfortunate pilot who was the cause of the note, pilots mistaking all sorts of lighting for a runway is really not that uncommon. Except for cattle pens, perhaps.
