The 2025 World Migratory Bird Day Toolkit has been posted! Check under the Education tab.

Window Collisions

Glass Strikes and Artificial Light At Night (ALAN)

According to the American Bird Conservancy, up to one billion birds are killed by collisions with glass in the United States per year. Other sources of collision mortalities are wind turbines, communications towers, and power lines. Many of these birds are North American songbirds. Zoos and aquariums use glass to present their exhibits for an enhanced guest viewing experience. As conservation organizations, we have a responsibility to design our exhibits to be bird-friendly. Recently, AZA institutions have begun to take a leadership role in addressing collisions of wild birds with glass in their operations. This can be seen in the adoption of bird-friendly design strategies in new construction https://abcbirds.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/04/Bird-Friendly-Building-Design_Updated-April-2019.pdf as well as the redesign of existing exhibits. There are simple and affordable strategies guests and their families can do to take an active role to protect birds at home. For example, putting up bird tape on windows at home is an easy action (https://abcbirds.org/program/glasscollisions/abcbirdtape/ or http://www.conveniencegroup.com/featherfriendly/feather-friendly ). We can model AZA values as we continue to integrate bird-friendly glass into the design of our newest buildings or to retrofit older buildings with bird-friendly products. It is a powerful message that together we can build bird-friendly architecture and educate millions of visitors each year on the glass strike issue, conservation implications, and the attainable solutions.

Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) increases the risk of colliding with windows because birds can often become disoriented by lights in and around buildings and therefore fly closer to them. This confusion also affects migration. Turn off unnecessary lights at night, point any necessary lights towards the ground, and use motion-activated lights wherever possible. Several AZA institutions have also joined or created a Lights Out program in their area. Consider doing the same at your institution. Learn more about Artificial Light at Night from IUCN below.

IUCN The World At Night Report

Learn more about light pollution at darksky.org/

SAFE North American Songbird Bird Collision Tool Box

SAFE Songbird Collision Toolkit docx (FINALCOMPLETE)

Links

Glass Collisions: Preventing Bird Window StrikesLearn about the widespread, but preventable, problem of bird-window collisions and what the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is doing to promote solutions.

Bird Collision Reduction Toolkits | U.S. Fish & Wildlife ServiceEvery year, we lose nearly one billion birds from fatal collisions with buildings in the U.S. While most bird collisions happen at glass windows in homes and low-rise buildings, larger lit structures like communication towers and even smaller structures like glass walkways and bus stop shelters also pose a threat.

"A WonderGrove for Birds" is an environmental science animated series that demonstrates the ways in which young learners in grades K-6 can develop an interest in their environment by focusing on the needs and behaviors of birds in and around their homes. Through this series, children will discover how birds help our environment and what we can do right now to create habitats and/or restore habitats where birds can thrive. Produced by Wonder Media and created by Terry Thoren, the former CEO of Klasky Csupo, Inc., the company that created The Wild Thornberrys, this series is based on Cornell Lab of Ornithology's 7 Simple Actions to Help Birds and Douglas Tallamy's book Nature's Best Hope. You can view all the videos at https://www.wonder.media/wondergrove-for-birds.

Videos

Window Collisions and Light Pollution for website 1.pdf

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse