Hundreds Of Birds Dead After Striking WTC Towers

September 17, 2021 News, Wildlife

The Associated Press reports:

Hundreds of birds migrating through New York City this week died after crashing into the city’s glass towers, a mass casualty event spotlighted by a New York City Audubon volunteer’s tweets showing the World Trade Center littered with bird carcasses.

This week’s avian death toll was particularly high, but bird strikes on Manhattan skyscrapers are a persistent problem that NYC Audubon has documented for years, said Kaitlyn Parkins, the group’s associate director of conservation and science.

NYC Audubon wants the owners of the World Trade Center towers and other buildings to help reduce the number of bird strikes by dimming the lights at night and by treating glass to make it more visible to birds.

Read the full article.

Some of the 226 dead birds I picked up this morning while window collision monitoring for @NYCAudubon. 205 from @3NYWTC and @4WTC alone. Many others swept up, inaccessible, or too mangled to collect. 30 injured to @wildbirdfund. If you’re in NYC today, be careful where you step. pic.twitter.com/RTjm82NIpy

— Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer) September 14, 2021

I did this for 65 minutes straight doing one loop around @4WTC and @3NYWTC — most of these before sunrise. Please can we turn off lights during migration??? pic.twitter.com/pCXoJkUXo0

— Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer) September 14, 2021

When you have 226 dead window-struck migratory birds from one morning, it’s hard to get them all in one photo. @_WTCOfficial — lights can be turned off, windows can be treated. Please do something. @4WTC and @3wtcnewyork don’t let this be your legacy. @NYCAudubon @wildbirdfund pic.twitter.com/Qiu8Wqmilf

— Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer) September 14, 2021

Counting the dead birds on @_WTCOfficial awnings that I couldn’t collect; add another 35, + the 30 who went to @wildbirdfund making my documented total 291 between WTC 1, 3, 4, 7. That number excludes the swept & smashed ones. I understand they continued coming thru the morning.

— Melissa Breyer (@MelissaBreyer) September 15, 2021