Buildings Kill a Billion Birds per Year
April 26, 2011 by Lloyd Alter, Toronto
- Mourning Dove window strike - Jeanne Donaldson
It's James Audubon's 226th birthday, a good day to think about birds and green buildings. According to the Audubon Society, up to a billion birds are killed each year by colliding with windows, the second biggest threat after habitat loss, and a whole lot more than wind turbines. If you read Sheryl DeVore's article in the Chicago Tribune, you would think that LEED certified buildings are particularly lethal for birds. She writes about Chicago's new LEED Platinum FBI Headquarters, which brought in Annette Prince of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors to help reduce bird deaths at the building. DeVore writes:
"The FBI building isn't the only LEED-certified structure to cause problems for migratory birds. Some of the more than 33,000 certified LEED buildings in the United States use glass to bring in natural light and save on energy. All that glass can confuse birds. "A building that kills birds is not a leader in energy and environmental design," said Prince.
