At least 1,000 birds migrating south died within a day after crashing into the McCormick Place building in Chicago, North America’s largest convention center. This incident occurred on October 5, but until yesterday volunteers were still working to recover the carcasses and the number may increase.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” warns Annette Prince, director of Bird Collision Monitors of Chicago. In the jargon, this phenomenon is called “bird strike” and unfortunately it is not that rare. Tall buildings like McCormick Place are largely covered in glass, which often confuses birds that crash into the windows. But on October 5, an unprecedented event occurred in terms of the number of birds killed in a single day and in a single building.
How to reduce such problems? One of the main risk factors for migratory birds is light pollution, that is, lights turned on in buildings at night. Turning off building lights is one way to reduce casualties. A 2021 study conducted at McCormick Place found that turning off half the lights in large buildings could reduce crashes by 6 to 11 times. McCormick Place participates in the Lights Out Chicago program, which requires buildings to voluntarily turn off or dim their lights at night unless someone is inside.
In 2020, Chicago passed a bird-friendly design ordinance, but it has not yet gone into effect. In 2021, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Bird Safe Buildings Act, which “requires bird-friendly design to be incorporated into the construction and renovation of government-owned buildings.”
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
