New study on bird collisions in New York City
Graphical abstract from the research paper.
The following is an excerpt from a NYC Audubon article by Andrew Maas.
Up to a quarter million birds die annually from crashing into New York City’s buildings due to light pollution and reflective or clear glass. A new study in the Journal of Applied Ecology found that weather forecasts and bird migration intensity data can be used together to predict the days of greatest bird collision risk in New York City. This information can then be used to target particularly high-risk nights in New York City—and potentially, metropolises similar to New York City—for “Lights Out” initiatives that would reduce collisions more effectively.
“We found that seasonally unfavorable wind directions, low visibility, and low cloud ceilings increase collision risk during both spring and fall migration, especially on nights when large numbers of birds are migrating overhead,” says Katherine Chen of Columbia University and NYC Audubon, and the lead author of the study. “Specifically, northerly and westerly winds and low visibility in the spring, as well as southerly and westerly winds and low cloud ceiling height in the fall, lead to the greatest collision risk in New York City.”
Scientists from NYC Audubon, Columbia University, the University of Canterbury, American Bird Conservancy, Great Hollow Nature Preserve & Ecological Research Center, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign combined five years of bird collision data from 27 buildings in New York City with concurrent historical weather and migration data. Using this dataset, they then generated predictions of the likelihood of collisions under varying weather and migration conditions for spring and fall.
Read the full post on the website of NYC Audubon, and download the research paper using the link below:
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| Heavy migration traffic and bad weather are a dangerous combination: Bird collisions in New York City Journal of Applied Ecology download pdf |
