![]() “We were convinced after the monitoring surveys we did that it wasn’t lights that were the main problem, it was glass,” recalls Russell. But that data has never been released, and Russell says no one involved showed that data to the initially skeptical property owners. ![]() The Audubon team did end up collecting relevant information in a monitoring study conducted between 20 in collaboration with other major Philadelphia organizations, including the Academy of Natural Sciences. “When we first tried to get Lights Out in 2006, just weren’t convinced that this was a problem,” he says, noting the lack of direct evidence at the time tying the buildings to the issue. Next City reached out to property managers listed as participants in Lights Out Philly but wasn’t able to schedule interviews with any. The study drew on two decades worth of data on bird collisions, weather and migration patterns to form its conclusion.īut that sort of data wasn’t available back when Russell and his team first tried to get the Lights Out Philly program off the ground. According to a 2021 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “decreasing lighted window area could reduce bird mortality by ∼60%” at a large Chicago building. The impact of the seemingly simple ask can be immense, some studies show. To help reduce migratory bird strikes and deaths, programs in Pittsburgh, Houston and Greensboro, N.C., and other cities across the country have focused on light pollution to encourage residents, businesses and municipalities to shut off their lights during late-night hours during typical spring and fall migration periods. “The light pollution is the siren song, and the building is the siren herself,” quips Seliem.Įven without lights, reflections on glass cause birds to “think they can fly right through that clear glass,” Russell notes. Green Building Council with a background in bird collision deterrence and light pollution. Together, these factors lead to fatal crashes that can kill individual birds or hundreds of members of a migrating flock, according to Karema Seliem, a LEED specialist at the U.S. While light pollution initially draws birds into the city, it’s the combined effect of an abundance of lights and the resulting glare of windows and other reflective glasses that makes it hard to safely navigate - if those surfaces haven’t been modified with bird deterrent films or treatments, that is. ![]() “Once they’re in the city, can get confused … and potentially hit windows,” she explains. candidate at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. In highly illuminated areas, light pollution can cause migratory birds to divert from their intended aerial paths and into obstacle-filled urban centers, although local urban birds are harmed by light pollution, too, says Colleen Miller, a light pollution ecologist and Ph.D. “ what I think pushed us to the point where these organizations said, ‘Okay, this is horrible - we’d be willing to turn off our lights and get involved in this program,’” he explains. At this point, roughly 100 Philadelphia buildings - 69 residential and 39 commercial - have signed on. That crash was pivotal to the real start of the Lights Out program, says Russell, who is now Audubon Mid-Atlantic’s urban conservation program manager. Yet for over a decade, he and his team couldn’t get building managers to sign the pledge - until over 1,000 migratory birds struck downtown Philadelphia buildings in late 2020, stunning city residents. But since joining Audubon Mid-Atlantic in 2006, Russell has been deeply involved in mitigating the problem, including through the creation of Lights Out Philly, a light pollution mitigation pledge. In the years since, he has continued witnessing the often fatal result of building-bird collisions. “I would come to work in the morning, and a lot of times I would see dead birds on the street,” says Russell, who brought the carcasses to Academy taxidermists for the institution’s dioramas. At the time, he worked for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the oldest natural sciences institution in the Western hemisphere, located in the heart of the city along the iconic Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Keith Russell was on his way to work in the late 1980’s when he “really started noticing” birds killed by what he believed to be collisions with buildings.
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