NEWS CENTER MAINE • September 13, 2024
According to statistics cited by Maine Audubon, nearly a billion birds in the U.S. are killed each year when they crash into windows. "Birds don’t know what windows are," Nick Lund of Maine Audubon said. "Windows are reflective, so if you’re a bird, you think you're seeing the sky or habitat. Or if lit from within, windows are just invisible." A group called BirdSafe Maine—composed of Maine Audubon, the University of Southern Maine, and the Portland Society of Architects—has been working to raise awareness of the bird strike problem and its solutions. It recently honored several companies, schools, and individuals for taking action that is, happily, not particularly difficult. Merely putting bird-safe decals on windows reduces strikes dramatically.