Skyscrapers Are Killing Up To 1 Billion Birds A Year In US, Scientists Estimate

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

isn't this kinda evolution at work?

the birds too stupid to recognize that there is a building in front of them don't pass on their genes to subsequent generations.

the birds who are smart enough not to fly into buildings do get to pass on their genes.

EXACTLY!

This is just more gibberish from a bunch of silly activists. Too many overly educated people with nothing better to do--their grandparents probably worked on an assembly line, small shop, or farm and did something productive. Now we just have idle people who sit around wondering what cause to "fight" for next, even though nobody asked for it.

[photoLith]

Apparently bird species possibly going extinct are a laughing matter to some...

[JManc]

Originally Posted by photoLith

Apparently bird species possibly going extinct are a laughing matter to some...

There's not much you can do about this problem. Cats pose a far greater threat to birds than office buildings and they are widespread. Birds just need to avoid downtown and they're good. Cats are everywhere. I have cats but I would never let them wander around outside because they would murder every living thing in a 3 block radius.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

isn't this kinda evolution at work?

the birds too stupid to recognize that there is a building in front of them don't pass on their genes to subsequent generations.

the birds who are smart enough not to fly into buildings do get to pass on their genes.

No, it's not really. These glass buildings do not exist in nature. The reflective glass creates a situation that the instincts of birds are not programmed to deal with. So they die.

In a natural situation, which they had evolved to deal with over thousands of years (or which they were created for, depending on your beliefs), they do just fine.

If you want to take it further, we take into account human deficiencies when we build these towers, which is why balconies have railings, elevator shafts have doors which close when the elevator is not there, etc. By your statement, we should just leave these things off, because if somebody falls off a balcony just because there is no railing it's just evolution at work, because that human was too stupid to not fall off... and the person they killed when they landed on them was too stupid to avoid walking next to a tower without a balcony.

The clear fact is that we created these buildings to suit ourselves, without consideration for the other species who populate the planet with us. But, why should towers be any different than anything else? That's what we've always done...

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by JManc

There's not much you can do about this problem. Cats pose a far greater threat to birds than office buildings and they are widespread. Birds just need to avoid downtown and they're good. Cats are everywhere. I have cats but I would never let them wander around outside because they would murder every living thing in a 3 block radius.

But that's like saying mountains exist that people can fall off of, so why bother putting railings on balconies?

There are people trying to do something about this problem. Perhaps things can be incorporated into new designs to prevent it from happening in the future. It's not like you can communicate to migrating birds that they need to avoid cities because they are dangerous.

Good on you for keeping your cat inside. We do the same and have found our cat to be a proficient hunter of stuffed toys. Pass the word along and maybe more people will consider the situation.

[The North One]

I wonder what the killing stats are between old pre-war skyscrapers and new glass ones.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

isn't this kinda evolution at work?

the birds too stupid to recognize that there is a building in front of them don't pass on their genes to subsequent generations.

the birds who are smart enough not to fly into buildings do get to pass on their genes.

That would take millions of years to happen if ever.

[photoLith]

The main thing to do to combat the problem is turn off the lights during the heaviest migration weeks, this would save hundreds of thousands of warblers, etc.

[texcolo]

Ever bump into a plate glass window or door? Now try that 15 stories up.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

EXACTLY!

This is just more gibberish from a bunch of silly activists. Too many overly educated people with nothing better to do--their grandparents probably worked on an assembly line, small shop, or farm and did something productive. Now we just have idle people who sit around wondering what cause to "fight" for next, even though nobody asked for it.

no, the prior generation worked on an assembly line so that hopefully their children wouldnt have to work on an assembly line, and could instead use their god given brainpower for higher level complex tasks and thoughts. giving a shit about our impact on the world and re-evaluating previously accepted practices which were simply blindly followed for either no good reason/convenience/or pure ignorance is certainly one of those. the most revolutionary and prescient people of a given era are typically the ones engaging in critical thinking and giving us things we didnt ask for...our society has enough sheep.

if you can design buildings to prevent billion of other living things from being slaughtered on their way to migratory nesting grounds, you would not want to do that...why? in typical Skyscraperpage fashion though, a reasonable proposal by any measure is met with the usual lugheaded responses from the usual lugheaded posters. never change.