Heads up Sizing up Toronto's biggest bird-killing buildings

[Donna]

Have you ever had the terrifying experience of witnessing a bird fly full-speed into a window? According to the Fatal Light Awareness Program, a group that tries to reduce migratory-bird casualties, conservative estimates put the annual total of bird-meets-building collisions in the GTA at one million. Almost all collisions occur during the spring and fall migrations, with death tolls peaking in May and September. The most notorious aviary death trap is Consilium Place, a mirrored office tower complex in Scarborough near McCowan Road and the 401. (More than 8,000 dead and injured birds have been collected there over the past decade.) On April 7, nonprofit groups Ecojustice and Ontario Nature took the developers of Consilium Place to court, arguing that light reflected from the building’s mirrored glass facade constitutes a “contaminant� to the bird population under the Environmental Protection Act. If the bird advocates win, the developer could pay up to $8 million per day in fines—a powerful warning to the owners of other hazardous-to-birds buildings in the city. We charted which towers are most dangerous for our feathered friends, and learned all about bird rehab.

The white-throated sparrow is the bird you’re most likely to see hurtling toward your window at high speeds.


THE TOP TEN MOST LETHAL BUILDINGS
Bird deaths and injuries recorded by FLAP in 2010

10. 20 Holly St.: 133

9. TD Centre LinkWay: 147

8. 40 Soudan Ave: 172

7. Royal Bank Plaza South: 180

6. 4100 Yonge St.: 217

5. 100 Consilium Place: 241

4. 4110 Yonge St.: 289

3. 4120 Yonge St.: 318

2. York Mills Centre: 346

1. 200 Consilium Place: 410

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