Factors influencing bird-building collisions in the downtown area of a major North American city.

Scott R Loss,Joanna W Eckles,Sirena Lao,Reed J Turner,Robert B Blair,Abigail W Anderson,Christopher A Lepczyk

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0224164

Abstract

Bird-building collisions are the largest source of avian collision mortality in North America. Despite a growing literature on bird-building collisions, little research has been conducted in downtown areas of major cities, and no studies have included stadiums, which can be extremely large, often have extensive glass surfaces and lighting, and therefore may cause many bird collisions. Further, few studies have assessed the role of nighttime lighting in increasing collisions, despite the often-cited importance of this factor, or considered collision correlates for different seasons and bird species. We conducted bird collision monitoring over four migration seasons at 21 buildings, including a large multi-use stadium, in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. We used a rigorous survey methodology to quantify among-building variation in collisions and assess how building features (e.g., glass area, lighting, vegetation) influence total collision fatalities, fatalities for separate seasons and species, and numbers of species colliding. Four buildings, including the stadium, caused a high proportion of all collisions and drove positive effects of glass area and amount of surrounding vegetation on most collision variables. Excluding these buildings from analyses resulted in slightly different collision predictors, suggesting that factors leading some buildings to cause high numbers of collisions are not the exact same factors causing variation among more typical buildings. We also found variation in collision correlates between spring and fall migration and among bird species, that factors influencing collision fatalities also influence numbers of species colliding, and that the proportion, and potentially area, of glass lighted at night are associated with collisions. Thus, reducing bird collisions at large buildings, including stadiums, should be achievable by reducing glass area (or treating existing glass), reducing light emission at night, and prioritizing mitigation efforts for glass surfaces near vegetated areas and/or avoiding use of vegetation near glass.

Highlights

Up to 1.5 billion birds are killed annually in North America by colliding with vehicles and human-made structures, including buildings, communication towers, and energy infrastructure [1,2,3]
In a study of 21 buildings over four migration seasons in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, we documented substantial variation among buildings in numbers of bird collisions, with four large buildings causing the majority of collisions, including a large multi-use stadium, which ranked third for most estimates
These same four buildings drove the positive effects of glass area and the proportion of surrounding land covered by vegetation on most collision response variables

Summary

Introduction

Up to 1.5 billion birds are killed annually in North America by colliding with vehicles and human-made structures, including buildings, communication towers, and energy infrastructure [1,2,3]. Collisions are influenced by features of buildings (e.g., size, height, and window/glass area) [7,8] and their immediate surroundings (e.g., nearby vegetation and greenspace) [9,10,11,12,13]. Such small-scale effects appear to be mediated by regional patterns of urbanization and greenspace [14]. Collisions are influenced by the abundance of birds near buildings [19,20,21] and by traits of birds themselves, including visual perceptual ability [22,23] and life history (e.g., residency status, migratory strategy) [24,25,26]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion