How Can I Help Make My Business Bird-Safe?

Building owners and managers, companies who lease space in larger buildings and individual employees whose offices have exterior windows can take action to help prevent bird window collisions.

Tall buildings that use the “lights out” guidelines below may save thousands to even hundreds of thousands of dollars from their energy bill and significantly reduce their building’s “carbon footprint!”

For tall buildings and buildings located on “migration corridors,” like lake shores and near rivers, minimize or extinguish night lighting (lighting visible through exterior windows and exterior vanity lighting) between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. during the migration periods of mid-August through October and mid-March through May. You can accomplish this by:

• Utilizing motion detectors to control lights when lighting is necessary.

• Scheduling night cleaning to reduce the amount of time lights are needed.

• Programming light timers to fit hours of operation and cleaning.

• Reducing perimeter lighting.

• Installing lower-intensity lighting.

• At night, move activities requiring light to interior rooms and use low-intensity task lighting like desk lamps.

 

For ALL businesses:

• Install CollidEscape, Bird Screens, WindowAlerts or other treatments on ground level windows, or use solar reflective blinds or curtains to reduce daytime collisions. View effective installations of these products here.

• Include “bird-friendly” building concepts when designing or remodeling a building.

To find out how you can register your building as a BirdSafe Business, click here! You can also learn more about the organizations in our community participating in the BirdSafe Business Program.

Other cities have already committed to collision prevention, reducing bird deaths by 80%!

For more information on how you can make your business safe for birds, contact WHS Wildlife Manager, Scott Diehl, at sdiehl@wihumane.org.