After two years of effort focused on helping raise awareness of facility impacts to birds and working to implement solutions at federal facilities, the Council agencies continue to report successes on this front. Federal agencies have embraced the 2013 Council theme of facilities management by implementing a number of actions and outreach efforts throughout their agencies. Many of these efforts are highlighted in the May 2015 CCMB Newsletter article on Federal Agencies Work to Make Facilities Bird-Friendly. Below are additional agency achievements since the last Newsletter release.
Department of Defense (DOD) DoD regularly implements a wide variety of facilities management programs and tools to benefit bird conservation, including deterring birds from airfields and hangars to prevent bird strikes, and retrofitting power lines to prevent bird electrocutions. For example, the Navy identified power pole configurations that were resulting in high levels of electrocution of raptors, corvids, and other low-flying species at several facilities. Consequently, personnel retrofitted these poles to avoid continuing impacts to birds, and are now working to reduce electrocutions of Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) and Peregrine Falcons at the immediate base of poles that had not previously been identified as a hazard. Based on the results of surveys funded in FY12 and coordination with FWS, the Navy will be retrofitting high priority power poles specifically to protect at-risk bird species, including for eagles and Ospreys.
Department of Energy (DOE) - To advance the Council for the Conservation of Migratory Birds (CCMB) Facilities Management theme, the Chief Real Property Officer of DOE recently issued a complex-wide memorandum regarding integrating migratory bird protection in facility and property management. The memorandum briefly describes the commitments the Department has made in its Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and notes that the Department is a member of the CCMB. It credits the CCMB with providing resources to aid sites in reducing avian stressors and impacts and specifically lists the Nationwide Conservation Measures, the Low to No Cost Measures for Reducing Bird Impacts at Federal Facilities, and the CCMB-recommended webinars. The memorandum also references the Section 3.5.6, Bird Safe Building Design of GSA's Facilities Standards for the Public Buildings Service, PBS-P100.
Federal Aviation Adminstration (FAA) - In addition to circulating information on reducing impacts to migratory birds to facilities managers and offices with oversight of facility design and operation, the FAA included a message in the Daily Broadcast e-mail regularly issued to all employees listing simple, low- or no-cost measures that can be adopted at existing facilities, and emphasizing measures that also have energy-saving benefits and can help to achieve sustainability goals. The FAA is also updating its Advisory Circular for obstruction lighting used at night to warn pilots of a tower or other hazard, with revised specifications that will reduce their attraction to migratory birds without compromising safety.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) - Several USFWS buildings have taken or started taking steps to reduce the impacts of their building glass on birds. Two of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Refuges have implemented bird friendly modifications to their buildings, including the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Florida and the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in Philadelphia. The details of these efforts were recently featured in the refuges "Friends Forward" newsletter, which can be viewed here. In addition, employees at the USFWS Headquarters office in Falls Church, VA recently concluded their fall building monitoring effort. The effort involved surveying multiple times a week within their building complex for dead and injured birds in and around windowed areas. They plan to use the findings to educate building management on the problem, point out locations where birds are regularly colliding, and try to work with building management to implement avoidance and minimization measures for these areas. They intend to base their suggested solutions on recommendations in the upcoming Building, Glass and Lighting Best Practices document.
More detailed information on facilities management efforts and other Council agency efforts for migratory birds will be featured in the upcoming edition of the Council Annual Report. Stay tuned for its upcoming release!