Cities Move to Protect Birds in Flyway Zones with Bird Safety Window Film Installation Legislation
The relatively recent interest in anti-bird strike window film received a significant boost with the December, 2019, passing by the New York City Council of legislation requiring bird friendly glass in buildings throughout the city.
The law passed after an intense bird safety
campaign by local and national conservation groups and with the support of a
number of influential building architects.
The city is in a major northeast bird
migration route known as the Atlantic Flyway. As a result of that and the huge
number of high-rise buildings in the city with glass facades, between 90,000
and 230,000 birds die annually from flying into the buildings.
New York isn’t the only city with this
problem. There are five major bird flyways in North America, stretching from
the West Coast to the East Coast. A number of major cities with numerous
high-rise buildings are located in these bird migration zones. Chicago, Houston
and Dallas are considered the most dangerous cities for bird migrations. In
total, it’s estimated that around 600 million birds die annually from striking
buildings and other structures.
As a result, various forms of bird safe
building standards or legislation has been adopted in the state of Minnesota;
several California cities, including San Francisco and Oakland; and Toronto. San
Francisco was the first city to pass bird safety legislation in 2011, although
it was not a binding law. Several members of Congress have introduced
legislation seeking bird-safe requirements in new federal buildings.
The
issue with birds and office building glass involves location, light conditions,
and time of day. Building glass and windows can appear highly reflective or
completely transparent. By appearing similar to open sky, trees, and
vegetation, it causes birds to mistake the space as a safe place to fly.
Most
birds’ first encounters with glass are fatal as they collide with it at full
flight speed. The uniqueness of bird vision is a contributing factor to this problem.
While humans have eyes in the front of their heads and good depth perception,
most birds’ eyes are at the sides of their heads. Thus, they have little depth
perception beyond the range of their bills but extensive fields of view to the
side and behind. They judge their flight speed by the passing of objects to
their sides, so their focus in flight is not necessarily ahead.
So
rather than designing buildings using less glass, which will not be happening,
birds can be protected by “marking” the glass in some way so they perceive the
windows as barriers and avoid them.One easy and cost-effective way to do this
is to install anti-bird strike window film on all glass that is located in bird
flyway zones. These films usually have horizonal or vertical patterns that make
the glass visible to birds
In New York, for instance, the
law requires 90 percent of the building envelope for the first 75 feet of a new
building - or any building undergoing major alterations - to be constructed of
bird-friendly materials meeting a specified design standard intended to
decrease bird strikes.
The law also requires the
installation of the bird-friendly materials where an exterior wall envelope is
adjacent to a green roof system and on certain installations that create
hazards for birds, such as glass awnings, handrails, windbreak panels, acoustic
barriers, and parallel glass panels.
The law relates to new
construction but there is an important clause requiring architects and builders
to include bird protection during any building renovation project. In this
case, anti-bird strike film installation is the perfect solution to the
problem.
The American Bird Conservancy,
which has a glass collisions program, was a major player in advising New York’s
city council on the legislation. The group also has worked closely with
architecture firms around the country to get them on board with the bird safety
effort in their building designs.
The Jacob Javits Convention
Center in New York is a significant success story in the quest to improve
building glass safety for birds. Once considered the deadliest building in New
York for birds because of the huge amounts of reflective glass in the
building’s design, a building renovation project completed in 2014 that
included fritted, translucent glass panels reduced bird deaths by 90 percent.
If you own or manage a building
in a bird flyway zone and are being confronted with the unfortunate spectacle
of birds crashing into your windows, you’ll want to contact a company
experienced in the installation of bird safety window film. Commercial Window shield
is one of the country’s pioneers in the installation of anti-bird strike safety
window film.
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