Introduction:
Birds are facing a crisis — nearly three billion birds have been lost across North America since 1970 as a result of human activities impacting birds and their habitats.
Each year, billions of birds migrate across vast ranges spanning the Americas. For many, the journey is fatal. In Canada, tens of millions of birds are killed annually by crashing into glass on buildings, most of which are low-rise or residential. This makes collisions with glass a leading direct cause of bird fatalities.
Yet governments lack momentum to address the causes. Nearly two decades after Toronto became the first city in the world to consider bird safety in its planning process, Canadian cities are now trailing behind global peers in protecting birds from colliding with buildings.
The Ontario government recently passed legislation that prohibits municipalities from enforcing green building standards, including bird-safe design, through their local planning process.
This change appears to conflict with federal laws protecting birds that apply to building owners. Canada’s Migratory Bird Regulations and Species at Risk Act prohibit killing birds by causing collisions, even unintentionally. Fines can range up to $1 million per animal for killing a listed Species at Risk.
Our new research explores strategies for designing bird-safe cities. Using Toronto as a case study, we examined how collaborative planning can balance development with ecological sustainability, reducing bird collisions with buildings.
Any tips on how to make a big window, bird safe?
Add some stickers or decals
https://wildlife.org/window-decals-create-sticky-situation-for-deterring-bird-strikes/
Whenever I hear the supposed numbers around bird death attributed to both cats and buildings, they seems enormously exaggerated:
In Canada, tens of millions of birds are killed annually by crashing into glass on buildings, most of which are low-rise or residential.
Tens of millions? We should be seeing piles of dead birds all around low rise building all over Canada. I haven’t been to Canada in 20 years, but I don’t recall that being the case. If that were true of Canada, then it would be true of America, too, and that certainly isn’t the case. I seldom see a dead bird. I don’t ever recall being in a house when a bird hit a window, and I’m an old guy. I’m sure plenty of people will say it happened to them ONCE, but tens of millions of times? Bird strikes on windows would be routine.
I recently read that the massive bird deaths attributed to cats are exaggerated. It turns out that those studies are greatly flawed. It seems that the decreases in bird populations are due to MANY factors, of which windows and cats are only 2, and have been there for a long time. Other factors, like Climate Change, urban sprawl, real estate development, pesticides/ herbicides, various predators besides cats (owls, hawks, eagles, squirrels, raccoons, crows, etc.), etc.
Everybody has a pet reason for the decrease in bird populations, and they’re all correct, they just aren’t solely responsible.
The estimate is 16 to 42 million birds die each year from hitting glass. On the low end, each building (of which there are 15.5 million in Canada approximately [source]) on average one bird dies due to hitting glass per building. That is not quite in the realm of ‘piles of birds around every low rise building’, given that they do not occur all at once (it is an annual number after all), and the bodies do decompose, get eaten, or get cleaned up.