Mirrored Towers Fatal Attraction for birds (Toronto Canada)

[Donna]

Shanta Persaud was standing at the photocopier one morning when she saw a little bird fly directly into a large window on the ground floor of her Scarborough office building. The receptionist ran outside to find the bird on the ground, gasping for its last breath.

It “just hit the glass and fell to the ground. It sounded like a pebble against the glass,� she said. “It’s so sad.� And it wasn’t the first time she’d seen this happen.

For birds migrating through Toronto each spring and fall, the three multi-storey office buildings at 100, 200 and 300 Consilium Place are a death-trap. So much so that last week, the environmental groups Ontario Nature and Ecojustice — formerly the Sierra Legal Defence Fund — initiated a private prosecution against the buildings’ managers under the Environmental Protection Act and the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act.

The buildings, near Highway 401 and McCowan Rd. are covered in mirrored glass and as high as 17 storeys. They stand out in an area with few highrises, making them even more lethal than buildings downtown.

In 2008-2009, more than 800 birds were recovered from the lawns around the buildings, ironic considering that the Building Owners and Managers Association had awarded the complex its “Go Green certificate of achievement� for its environmental practices.

Over the past decade, more than 7,000 birds of 82 species have met harsh, painful deaths after flying into what bird safety advocate Michael Mesure calls “the most reflective glass windows of any building in the city.�

The action against management company Menkes alleges that the building’s reflectivity has caused death and injury to birds, including species in decline, and, with respect to animal cruelty legislation, has put animals in distress.

“If you see these buildings, these are essentially mirrors,� said Ecojustice lawyer, Albert Koehl. “What the birds see is the sky and trees reflected in the windows, and they fly right into them.�

Most daytime collisions actually happen between ground level and the fourth floor.

“Most of these birds die of traumatic injuries such as fractured skulls or broken backs,� Koehl said. The broader issue, he adds, is the decline in migratory birds observed year after year.

The high incidence of bird deaths caused by hitting buildings has been a significant concern for years. The non-profit group Fatal Light Awareness Program has tracked bird deaths in Toronto for more than a decade and initiated campaigns such as Lights Out Toronto to encourage building managers to turn lights off at night. (Nighttime lights confuse and attract birds into office windows.)

But this is the first time the law has been invoked in an attempt to change business behavior. Caroline Schultz, executive director of Ontario Nature, says most companies have refused to take any real action.

“There has been nothing specific in terms of legal action to really force business owners to seriously review the options that are available to them to reduce the problem,� said Schultz. “That’s the reason for doing this private prosecution, because this is the worst building in Toronto in terms of bird deaths every year.

“Opportunities exist to do things to mitigate the problem, and what we really want to do is to set a precedent that business owners have a responsibility under the law to do this,� she said. “It’s not voluntary.�

Menkes is to appear in the Ontario Court of Justice on March 17. The maximum fine under the EPA is $6 million per day for the first offence.

The building owner didn’t respond to numerous calls for comment on the charges or efforts to address the problem.

Toronto is on the migratory path for millions of birds, said Mesure, FLAP’s executive director. The spring migratory period begins next week and will go until the beginning of June. The fall migration runs from August to the end of October.

Mesure has worked on the issue for 20 years, but vividly recalls two “days of hell� at the Consilium towers when it seemed to be “raining birds.� On May 12, 2001, he said, FLAP volunteers recovered more than 500 injured or dead birds in six hours. On a Thanksgiving weekend in 2005, the group picked up 400 birds over two days.

In the past few years, the building managers have made attempts to address the problem. According to Persaud, employees have been told to report falling birds and to turn the lights off and put down blinds at night. They have also tried tactics to scare the birds away, such as hanging large orange balls from surrounding trees, and placing silhouettes of hawks and owls inside the windows.

But Mesure says Menkes has been reluctant to do anything more because the only real solution involves changing the aesthetics of the building.

“The only solution is to create patterns on the outside of the glass, so that the bird interprets the glass as a solid object,� he said. “The argument has always been that (owners) don’t want to change to look of the building.�

[Annette]

This is very sad.
     

[Bird Crazy]

poor birds don't stand a chance. 

[Donna]

Windows take a toll on birds -- killing up to 1 billion a year in North America. Conservancy bird expert Dave Mehlman gives tips on how you can help stop this deadly problem. Birds just do not get the concept of “glass.� We’ve all surely had the experience of having a bird fly into a window at our home, office or school, usually with unfortunate consequences for the bird. But have you ever stopped to think about how widespread this phenomenon is and how many birds it might be killing annually?
Dr. Daniel Klem Jr. of Muhlenberg College is one person who has thought about this problem and done much to bring it to the attention of bird conservationists in the United States and elsewhere. He has compiled an extensive amount of information, available at his Birds and Windows website.

Estimates are that between 100 million and 1 billion individual birds are killed annually by collisions with windows in the United States alone — I see no immediate reason why these figures would be erroneous. Klem has documented more than 270 different species of birds killed at windows in the United States and almost 800 species worldwide; the former represents more than 25 percent of the species known to occur in North America north of Mexico.
Potentially any bird species that occurs in urban, suburban or rural environments could be affected, regardless of age, sex or conservation status. Species occurring in wetlands, oceans or in areas far from human habitation are less at risk. Some of the more commonly killed species, as shown in Klem’s earlier work, are American robin, dark-eyed junco, cedar waxwing, ovenbird and Swainson’s thrush.
 
What can be done about this phenomenon? If there’s one thing to which “act locally� applies, this is it — we can all take action at our homes, offices and schools to reduce and eliminate this major problem.
 
It's not always easy and may involve some sacrifice of views out the window, but it’s worth it in terms of reducing this deadly menace to birds. Here are several things you can do to deal with window collisions:

   1.
      Move bird feeders, bird baths and perches to within 3 feet of your window — you’ll see the birds better and they can’t fly fast enough to get hurt.
   2.
      Collisions are caused by birds trying to fly through glass or because they see reflections from the outside — so do what you can to break up or eliminate this by placing decals or strings on the outside of your windows, separated by no more than 4 inches vertically and 2 inches horizontally.
   3.
      Use screens, films or other coverings on your windows that eliminate reflections — or use bird-safe glass.
   4.
      If constructing new windows, consider angling them 20 to 40 degrees from vertical.
   5.
      When installing new landscaping, consider placing trees, shrubs, water features, and other bird attractants well away from windows.