An Illinois Building Was a Bird Killer, killing 1,000 one day. A Simple Change Made a World of Difference.

[Demovictory9]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/climate/mccormick-place-chicago-birds.html

An Illinois Building Was a Bird Killer. A Simple Change Made a World of Difference.
Chicago is one of the most dangerous cities in the United States for migrating birds, and a glassy lakefront conference center was especially lethal.




These birds, inhabitants of forests and grasslands, do not perceive glass as solid and get confused by its reflections. Bright city lights seem to attract them, luring them into glassy canyons. The gleaming buildings of Chicago, curving along the shore of Lake Michigan, are especially lethal.

A call went out to volunteers across the city: Be ready to hit the streets early to rescue the injured and document the dead.

But at the building that has long been the city’s most notorious bird killer, a sprawling lakefront conference venue that claimed almost a thousand birds on a single day in October 2023, new protections were in place.

The vast glass windows and doors of the building, called Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, are overlaid with a pattern of close, opaque dots. Applied last summer to help birds perceive the glass, the treatment’s early results are nothing short of remarkable. During fall migration, deaths were down by about 95 percent when compared with the two previous autumns.

[Scruffy1]

1. Wow. some good news for a change. n/t.

[mopinko]

2. this needs to b part of the bldg code.

we’re on a huuuge flyway here. mccormick place is the worst, but there r many bldgs here that have a high death toll.
the collision monitors r a dedicated bunch, and it must be hard to pick up little dead bodies every day.

my sister lives out in the burbs, but is in an area w a lot of birds. she has a big window that gets crashed into every spring. she wants to stop it w/o ‘ruining’ her ‘view’. i hope she sees this and does something similar.

[3auld6phart]

5. Opaque

Window seen to work, without being really blocking g one’s view Amazon and your local hardware store stofres stock. .Give them a try. Works for ou patio door

[James48]

3. Always look behind the data.

Does that mean birds were down 95%?

That wouldn’t be a good result.

Always look closer - don’t assume - it could be what is the opposite of the truth.

[MadameButterfly]

4. Deaths were down 95%

not birds. My reading of the post.

[mopinko]

7. collisions and deaths.

[Easterncedar]

10. It's a good point, unfortunately.

Bird populations are disappearing, so, while I am happy that this building will be killing fewer of those birds that remain, the reduction in the number of potential victims needs to be addressed in the statistics.

[nycbos]

6. Dead or just resting?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Bengus81]

8. Why....I thought it was all those lefty,commie wind turbines killing all the birds

So how many die hitting that black glass tower that Trump owns?

[AllaN01Bear]

9. we used owl stickers and others to scare the birds .

[vapor2]

11. Such a simple solution

Sparrows crashing into my living room window, I used vertical tape strips .