BIRD FRIENDLY BUILDINGS: Glass collisions kill up to 1 billion birds in the United States each year. Both common and rare species are at risk. Recently, there’s been some promising momentum toward addressing this danger, as some cities and states have formalized bird-friendly strategies.

A number of cities, for example, passed local ordinances to use bird-friendly glass and lighting practices that reduce the risk of bird collisions. The bird-friendly building design LEED credit (SSpc 55), which American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and other partner groups helped to draft and elevate among the architectural community, serves as a good starting point for these local ordinances.

Statewide bird-friendly building legislation efforts are gaining momentum in New York, and could be poised for passage in Maryland. Minnesota passed statewide legislation in 2013 that mirrors the LEED credit.

At the federal level, ABC has championed H.R. 919, the Federal Bird-Safe Buildings Act, which has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and continues to gain bipartisan support to enact bird-friendly building guidelines for federal buildings.

These conservation advances — and others like them — are the result of tireless work by birders, activists, architects, and local officials. This, in turn, spurred glass companies to produce more bird-friendly products, as demand has grown.

The bird-friendly advances mentioned above primarily apply to new and significantly renovated high-rise or commercial buildings, leaving individual residents to reduce bird collision risks at houses and low-rise apartments. Fortunately, there are easy, cost-effective solutions, including Zen curtains to make the window more visible or a curtain of fine nylon non-filament lines, known as a “bird crash preventer.”

ABC also encourages communities across the country to advocate for collision solutions in their hometowns.

In New York City, the move to be more bird-friendly got a big boost with the opening of the new, Statue of Liberty Museum, designed by New York City-based architecture firm FXCollaborative, in May of 2019. Most of the glass on the building has a fritted dot pattern, which is practically invisible to human visitors, yet is already proving effective at preventing bird collisions. None have been reported since the glass was installed in the summer of 2018. ABC’s Bird Collisions campaign is made possible in part through the generous support of the Leon Levy Foundation and David Walsh.