From Bird Friendly Chicago
Promising news: Two projects were put out for bid
McCormick Place is putting out bids for bird-safety retrofitting options
The McCormick Place Lakeside facility had a huge bird-killing event last October, and even without that it is one of the city’s most deadly buildings for birds.
The management is now contemplating two fixes to their bird-killing windows investigating measures to reduce hazards for birds at their building. There are two big bird attractors there – light and glass – and management has put out bids for fixes that could neutralize each.
At McCormick Place, studies have documented that reducing the amount of light coming out of the windows reduces the number of birds killed. The high bird mortality is mostly due to the building’s unique position at the lakefront, and at the edge of downtown Chicago. The majority of these collisions are before and at dawn, when nocturnal migrants are looking for a place to land. Millions of these migrants pass through Chicago in spring and fall on their migration. Studies have shown that they are attracted by nighttime lighting, and over a thousand are killed at McCormick Place every year. McCormick Place does not ask its clients to draw their shades at night, in part because they have a very inefficient mechanism for drawing the shades that takes many hours and significant labor to do.
Also, McCormick Place, like many buildings, has daytime collisions at its large windows that reflect lake, sky and trees.
McCormick Place is moving forward with measures to install a better system of shades to block light, along with bird-protection treatments for their glass facades. We’ll continue to keep an eye on this and report back to you. If these are implemented correctly, they could make a significant reduction in bird strikes.
Good news: Shades have been drawn
Some good news is that the shades have been drawn every night since October, as management has promised. Your voices, and the voices of bird enthusiasts across the country, have definitely been heard!
Excellent news: Fish and Wildlife Involved
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has made recommendations to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority for them to take action to improve bird protection at the McCormick Place Lakeside facility. USFWS has rarely intervened in cases of window collisions, and we are encouraged that their involvement will play a critical role in enacting the changes that need to be made at this and other buildings.
What’s next for Bird Friendly Chicago?
We have until April 15 to influence regulations about new buildings. Watch for another action alert from us early next week. Then we will turn our sights to an ordinance that affects many more buildings. We’ll need all of our creativity and energy to get that passed! Stay tuned for opportunities to be involved.