The deadly dangers of glass to birds

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/when-birds-collide-with-buildings/


February 3, 2009, 3:45 pm — Updated: 7:44 am -->
When Birds Collide, With Buildings
By Jennifer 8. Lee
Marilynn K. Yee/The New York TimesFor birds, the Javits Convention Center is one of the deadliest buildings in New York.
The three deadliest buildings in New York for bird collisions in New York City are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and Bellevue Hospital Center, according to the New York City Audubon Society, which keeps track of the deaths as part of Project Safe Flight in an online database.
“We collect thousands of dead birds every year, and we barely scratch the surface,” said Glenn Phillips, the society’s executive director.The Fish and Wildlife Service gave a grant to the Audubon Society to study bird collision mortality in New York City. The study, which will be released in March, examines landscape and architectural risk factors in bird deaths around the city as a model for other urban areas. Among the areas studied were the Met and the Javits Center.
“These are tragic areas that result in the death of countless areas of birds,” said Daniel Klem Jr., a ornithologist at Muhlenberg College who led the study.
Until 2007, the most lethal building by far used to be the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center, a United States Postal Service site that spans from West 28th to West 30th Street between Ninth and 10th Avenues. The building’s 440 decorative reflective panels on the south side mirrored the trees in Chelsea Park, fooling the birds into believing it was a welcoming hospitable habitat.
In one 10-week period in the fall, the Audubon Society recorded 338 dead birds around the center. And it was generally not just pigeons that bonked themselves (perhaps they are too savvy). Instead, it was dark-eyed juncos, white-throated sparrows and ruby-crowned kinglets.
An architect recommended that black vinyl be placed over each of the panels at the center, and now things are immeasurably improved.
It has not been as easy a problem to remedy with the Met, the Javits Center and Bellevue, because of a combination of aesthetics and technology. Mr. Phillips said they are in discussions with the buildings to reduce bird collision mortality.
But arguably, bird glass hazards in New York City are getting worse, not better. Glass is “in” because it is a common feature of green architecture, which means that more avian-unfriendly structures are popping up. They are particularly a hazard when they are near parks or other areas with foliage.
Or, as Mr. Phillips put it, “Glass and landscape together — bad.”
For example, the new diaphanous glass condominium building designed by Richard Meier in Brookyn’s Grand Army Plaza has raised the concern of the Audubon Society, as The New York Post noted this week.
“We’ve been planning on monitoring that building starting in the spring,” Mr. Phillips said.
In addition, the Apple Cube at the GM Building has raised concerns.
Dr. Klem estimated in a 1991 study that between 100 million and a billion birds die each year in glass collisions — that’s a huge spread, we’d like to point out — which would make the single greatest human-caused reason for bird deaths in the United States [pdf]. He said that his research since then shows that the one billion figure is conservative.
And it’s not only the architecturally tall buildings that cause problems. Rather, the most hazardous areas of all buildings are the ground level and bottom few stories — in part because those reflect the surrounding tree canopies. So birds can hit even short, squat buildings.
“The smallest piece of glass and the biggest piece of glass is an equal killer,” Dr. Klem said. “The birds behave like it’s invisible to them.”
There are some experimental solutions, none of them satisfactory from both an aesthetic and safety standpoint, from the Audubon Society point of view.
CollidEscape is a thin film that is applied to the exterior of windows — somewhat akin to those advertisements seen on buses and now in subways, only without the advertisements. Ornilux, which is made in Germany, is a glass designed to be more visible to birds, but its effectiveness is not clear.
There are other technological approaches. “The big question is, can ultraviolet light can be used? Because we can’t see it but they do,” said Dr. Klem, who added that he had been experimenting with ultraviolet light. A problem with the light, he explained, is that birds can view it as a force of attraction, like for mating and food.
“Danger is on the opposite of electromagnetic spectrum,” he said, in the reds and yellows.
New York City Audubon has just published a collection of bird-safe building guidelines, in a 55-page manual for architects and engineers.
“Honestly, the easiest solution would be for people not to build all-glass buildings,” Mr. Phillips said.
But people really like glass. In Lower Manhattan, 7 World Trade Center’s sometimes transparent-like appearance is beautiful, but that beauty is a hazard for birds. Likewise, 4 World Trade Center is also known for bird collisions.
A number of the architecturally striking buildings that are in the works, especially near the Hudson River, are also soaring and transparent.
Can City Room readers name other buildings in New York City that are not-so-bird friendly?
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Good news for birds near airports?

From the NY Post 1/23/09 edition:


FORCE IS WITH US
By TOM TOPOUSIS

Geese, beware: The US Air Force is on the way. Air Force brass yesterday offered to give New York one of its cutting-edge bird-detecting radar systems in order to prevent another airline collision like the one that forced a US Airways jet to ditch in the Hudson River last week. EXCLUSIVE: Ace Of Grace Gary Andrews, general manager at radar manufacturer DeTect Inc., said he got a call from the Air Force yesterday telling him to take a radar system slated for Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska and send it instead to New York. "That system is sitting here and it's ready to go," said Andrews, adding that the Air Force has offered to ship the system to the Port Authority at no cost. "I'm convinced that if La Guardia Airport had one of these radar systems, it would have detected the geese and alerted the controllers and pilot in time to avoid the collision," Andrews said of last week's US Airways splash-landing. DeTect's radar is already slated for a test program at Kennedy Airport, where technicians arrived yesterday to begin installing it. With a test already set for Kennedy, an aviation source said it's likely the Air Force's equipment would go to La Guardia. Officials at the Port Authority, which runs La Guardia, JFK and Newark airports, said they were unaware of the Air Force offer late yesterday. "We'll work with them to do what we need to do to expedite the program," said PA spokesman Pasquale DiFulco. Earlier yesterday, PA officials said they had asked the Obama administration to expand the federally sponsored test of the bird-detecting radar from Kennedy to La Guardia and Newark. "The request certainly has merit and we will see if the test can be expanded to include the two other airports in New York," said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters. New York's airports will be the first commercial airports in the nation to use the radar systems, designed to detect flying objects as small as birds and calculate potential collision courses with aircraft nearby. Radar now in use is designed only to track other aircraft. "The US is really moving slow on this," Andrews said of installing the bird-detecting radar that can cost from $500,000 up to $2 million for a large airport. He said airports in Germany, Canada and South Africa have already put the system in place. The bird-detecting radar has been used by the Air Force since 2003. NASA installed two DeTect systems after a vulture hit a space shuttle in 2005. Andrews said the radar has completely eliminated bird strikes at a North Carolina Air Force installation since it was installed in 2003. Before that, bird strikes averaged from four to seven each year. "We could have put this technology in place at every major airport for less than the cost of an airline crash like the one last week," he said. tom.topousis @nypost.com
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The urgency to reconnect children to nature.....

Our youth and children are losing touch with nature...with the rise of the Internet, TV, overexposed media, children have a variety of emotional and health problems affiliated with the lack of exposure to nature.Read this link about why we need to reconnect youth to nature.


http://www.childrenandnature.org/blog/

Conserve EPCAL! Calverton Grasslands threatened

This battle was a pledged cause of the Brooklyn Bird Club team in last May 's birdathon.The club raised 3800.00 dollars .

http://www.calvertongrasslands.org/

Loon deaths in Long Island

More on loons, both Common and Red-throated found dead on eastern end of Long Island beaches

see the link

http://www.easthamptonstar.com/dnn/Home/News/DeathofLoons/tabid/7353/Default.aspx

Boreal Birds conservation predictament

Received from email Boreal songbirds initiative:



Hello,

Didn’t know if you’ve seen this yet, but a new report has come out saying millions of birds, particularly migratory birds, will be killed by tar sands development in Canada. It’s already in close to 50 papers and is becoming quite a big deal. Here’s an article from CBC:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/02/edm-birds-oilsands-report.html

Report page with link to report:
http://www.borealbirds.org/birdstarsands.shtml


I’ve attached two images in case you were thinking about mentioning it in your blog. There’s also a video on YouTube talking about the huge impact the tar sands has on birds, mostly from an interview with Dr. Jeff Wells:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W847iqudLM

If your blog is in HTML you can embed the video into your blog by copying/pasting the code where it says “embed” to the right of the video.

Feel free to call if you have any questions (number below) - hope you find it interesting!

David

_________________________________

David Childs
Online Communications Campaigner
Boreal Songbird Initiative
206.956.9040 (main)
206.905.4801 (direct line)
davidc@borealbirds.org

Sign up for our updates!
http://www.borealbirds.org/signup.shtml

Mercury rising in NY State Bald Eagles

This news piece is from the Nature Conservancy website

http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/science/art26434.html