The Toronto Wildlife Centre has already taken in 800 dead or wounded birds from window strikes as migration season gets underway.
Some 500 of those birds came into the centre in the first two weeks of October.
This is the perfect time for people to bird-proof their windows and help prevent the unnecessary deaths of migratory songbirds.
The Toronto Wildlife Centre put the word out on social media this week:
“How many dead and injured birds will it take before buildings are made bird-safe? TWC admitted 157 wild animals on Monday – the majority were migratory songbirds who hit windows. It’s time to adopt bird-safe guidelines.”
The TWC linked their message to a FLAP website that offers detailed instructions on how to bird-proof windows.
Every year, millions of birds die in Ontario from flying into windows — and estimates are one million in Toronto alone.
According to FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada, these deaths are preventable with simple window treatments, and while the City of Toronto has made many improvements, the province needs to step up.
According to FLAP literature, “Most bird-window collisions happen during the daytime because birds mistake the reflections on glass for extensions of vegetation and sky or fail to see the transparent glass.”
Retrofits on existing buildings can treat windows so that bird-window collisions don’t happen, and new construction can incorporate materials safe for birds.
As FLAP states, birds are both beautiful and useful, as they pollinate plants, distribute seeds, and control pest populations.
The organization has a current campaign to require builders to use the bird-friendly building construction measures that already exist.
Appeals to the provincial government for a change to the building code got nowhere, but there is a petition people can sign and it has more than 20,000 signatures already.
The petition will go to the Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs & Housing; it asks to incorporate the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) 2019 Bird Friendly Building Design standard into the Ontario Building Code, requiring bird-friendly materials to be used in new residential and commercial building windows.
(There’s a national standard for bird-friendly building design but no requirements for developers to follow it.)
It’s an important petition. Nathalie Karvonen, executive director of the Toronto Wildlife Centre said in an interview Friday that she is disheartened to see, “The number of glass towers still going up in Toronto, especially around the waterfront,” as the city’s shoreline plays a crucial role in providing essential habitat for migratory birds.
And Karvonen mentioned the current design trend toward glass balconies, “even in cottage country,” which has added more reflective surfaces into the mix — deadly for the avian population.
“The glass balconies need to be bird-proofed too.”
FLAP Canada’s Annual Bird Layout for 2022 —the time-lapse display exhibit created from birds killed by our built environment — is now available to view on YouTube.
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