You can take action right away by following the guidelines below. In addition to saving migratory birds, building owners have realized direct benefits, including decreased energy and maintenance costs. Since 1995, Chicago’s tall buildings in the Loop have served as an example to the nation as they save 10,000 birds’ lives annually by participating in the Lights Out program. The Chicago Audubon Society manages the Lights Out program along with the Building Owners and Managers Association, the National Audubon Society, and the City of Chicago. The Lights Out program encourages the owners and managers of tall buildings to turn off or dim their decorative lights. As a result, many of them die from exhaustion or after colliding with a building. Lights from tall buildings can disrupt these migratory paths, causing birds to circle buildings repeatedly. Image courtesy of Karen Bean, Field Museum.During their migratory season, millions of birds representing hundreds of species fly through our city on their way to their summer or winter homes. Selection of birds found at McCormick Place, from the scientific collections of the Field Museum. The factors that had the strongest effect on bird collisions were the intensity of the migration (more birds migrating = more collisions), the wind direction (westerly winds = more collisions), and area of illuminated windows (more surface area lit = more collisions). Our research, published Jin PNAS, found that over the course of 21 years, one building sustained 11 times fewer bird collisions during spring migration and 6 times fewer collisions during fall migration when only half of the building’s windows were illuminated, compared to when all windows were lit. But even if you can’t turn out all the lights in a building, darkening even some windows could be a major lifesaver for birds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesīuilding lights are a deadly lure for the billions of birds that migrate at night, disrupting their natural navigation cues and leading to deadly collisions. Van Doren BM, Willard DE, Hennen M, Horton KG, Stuber EF, Sheldon D, Sivakumar AH, Wang J, Farnsworth A, Winger BM Drivers of fatal bird collisions in an urban center
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