A comprehensive new study linking the implementation of bird-friendly glass technology to the improvement of wildlife safety has been released by the American Bird Conservancy, offering architects what they say is a first-of-its-kind primer on an issue that still lags in the design of buildings nationally despite its popular civic and environmental appeals.

The study was published in conjunction with the Law, Ethics and Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale University Law School. Yale had previously undertaken its own Bird-Friendly Building Initiative (the study’s commissioner) and now hopes to use its findings to promote a range of policy recommendations in addition to increasing awareness as to the benefits of using fritted glass, reducing the persistence of visually uninterrupted glass curtain walls, installing window screens, and cutting down light pollution, and other practical design changes.

New York City is used as one case study, leading a group of other American cities like Alexandria, Virginia and three others that have been proactive in consolidating the use of the new technology into their local building codes. The U.S. Atlantic Flyway migratory route is considered one of the most dangerous on the planet and accounts for a disproportionate amount of the more than 1 billion birds estimated to be killed in the country annually. Philadelphia (despite recent reform efforts) is one of several leading examples, along with Manhattan, which SCAPE founder Kate Orff recently said has “been remade as a giant bird killer” over the past decade. 

Therefore, it is imperative, Christine Sheppard, ABC's Glass Collisions Program Director, says, for architects in those markets especially to consider the findings with alacrity. As she stated, “We don't have the luxury of addressing this problem one building at a time.”

This recent research expands on a body of scholarship produced by the National Audubon Society and other professional design and animal rights organizations. The Senate is currently considering the re-introduced Bird-Safe Buildings Act after it stalled out upon being passed by the House in 2019. Other pushes are underway locally, offering hope to advocates who tie the concern to the overall development of green building design both domestically and abroad.

“New rules and innovative strategies for mitigating existing building stocks are urgently needed, especially at high-collision buildings,” Meredith Barges, the study’s co-author and co-chair of the group Lights Out Connecticut, explained of the further need. “The types of building renovations that trigger most laws will not happen fast enough to save many threatened birds in the decades ahead.”

The full, 70-page report can be accessed here.