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Death From Above: Lawmaker Envisions Bird-Safe Buildings in New York City


Fern Davies

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https://www.newsweek.com/bird-deaths-collision-nyc-buildings-time-warner-center-new-york-city-debora-1294801?fbclid=IwAR3KtMkGiEj7RRt6PHT3yfzj8S-UXLjq5rHm9bi_LKtXoWgoyTPW7fJpPBg

 

Glick, who represents some bird-collision hot spots in both Lower Manhattan and Greenwich Village, last year introduced a bill that called for every building construction project in New York City to establish “bird collision deterrent safety measures” and use “bird-safe building materials and design features.”

Its measures call for premium materials such as ultraviolet treated or fritted glass (the near-invisible porcelain ball patterns that birds can detect) when applied from the ground level to 50 feet high, where most collisions occur. Screens or netting are other makeshift ways to cut down on “one of the largest threats to bird populations in New York City.”

Once introduced, Glick’s feather-friendly bill gained sponsors, but failed to pass.

On Jan. 9, the unflappable legislator reintroduced the bird-saving bill.

On her second try, Glick believes the country’s biggest city will do the right thing and own up to its environmental hazards.

The bill still demands that any building that undergoes construction or reconstruction work “shall be designed to comply with bird collision deterrent safety measures.”

That includes incorporating glass that is essentially bird-splat proof and approved by the division of migratory bird management in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We would like to require the city of New York to have bird deterrence and bird-safe glass in all new constructions and major renovated buildings,” she said.

State Assembly Member Steve Englebright, who reps Suffolk County on Long Island and chairs the Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation, last January re-introduced the “bird-friendly building council act."

Unlike Glick’s bill, there was no binding ultimatum forcing the city’s building projects to adopt bird-friendly measures.

Instead, Englebright’s bill proposed an 11-15 member “Bird-friendly building council” to establish rules and criteria to “reduce or eliminate bird mortality from building collisions. After the council conferred, recommendations would be sent to the governor, the Senate majority leader and the speaker of the assembly “for their consideration of being codified in state law.”

Englebright attempted to get the bill passed three previous times without success, an aid confirmed.

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