A City of Glass Towers: A Hazard for Migratory Birds

[amborin]

A City of Glass Towers, and A Hazard for Migratory Birds


Adriana Palmer, an Audubon bird safety manager, bagging remains.

snip

Deborah A. Laurel, an Audubon volunteer, looking for fallen birds at the atrium of the glass-walled World Financial Center.
Ms. Laurel is a volunteer for New York City Audubon, and during the weeks of the fall migration, she is part of a dawn patrol
that scans the sidewalks and plazas of Manhattan, searching for victims of the city’s forest of glass towers.
The other morning she spied the bodies of six that had collided with the plate-glass ferry terminal at the World Financial Center.

snip

New York is a major stopover for migratory birds on the Atlantic flyway, and an estimated 90,000 birds are killed
by flying into buildings in New York City each year, the Audubon group says. Often, they strike the lower levels
of glass facades after foraging for food in nearby parks. Some ornithologists and conservationists say such crashes
are the second-leading cause of death for migrating birds, after habitat loss, with estimates of the national toll
ranging up to a billion a year.

snip

There are no easy fixes, however. A few manufacturers are exploring glass designs that use ultraviolet signals
visible only to birds, but they are still in their infancy. Opaque or translucent films, decals, dot patterns,
shades, mesh screens — even nets — are the main options available. And they have been a tough sell in the high-design world.

snip


About 90 New York buildings now participate in Lights Out New York, Audubon’s initiative to get buildings to turn off
lights after midnight during the spring and fall migrations. Bright lights attract and confuse birds. Cities like Boston,
Chicago and Toronto also have successful lights-out campaigns.

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/nyregion/making-new-yorks-glass-buildings-safer-for-birds.html?_r=1

[Blue Owl]

1. The falling bird

Not as traumatic as the falling man, but still sad...

:(

[amborin]

6. yeah, still very sad

and 90K a year....just in nyc

[joeybee12]

2. That sucks...I'm for forcing ALL buildings to participate in lights out New York...

I'm for the 'nanny state' to help these little guys.

[amborin]

5. wish more cities had lights out!

[MineralMan]

3. While that's very sad, it doesn't seem economically feasible

to solve the problem in any significant way.

Birds do fly into windows. A couple die each year at my own house due to that. That represents a tiny fraction of the hundreds of birds that visit our feeders and water sources. I've done what I can to prevent this, but each year, a couple of young fledglings die from impacts with the large picture window in our living room. That, despite the measures we've taken to prevent this.

Without knowing the percentage of birds that visit NYC, it's impossible to say how much impact these deaths have on the bird population there. I suspect it is low, statistically.

[amborin]

4. it is very high, 90K migratory deaths yr just in NYC, w/ Hudson, etc. is huge magnet;

guess it all comes down to priorities....shiny new gadgets or saving other species.....

90,000 migratory birds a year die in NYC

[snooper2]

9. We could go back to this

You might have to give up your laptop though :P

[joeybee12]

7. I think it's probably higher than you think...NY is smack dab in the middle

of many migratory paths which makes it especially deadly for many birds.

[pansypoo53219]

8. bauhaus + modern clean must be destroyed!

less is not more. for the birds at least.