Dear Councilmembers,
As a DC resident and voter I am writing to express my support for the Migratory Local Wildlife Protection Act of 2022. This bill is urgently needed to protect the countless birds who collide with buildings in DC every year. Sadly, most of the birds involved in these collisions die. These traumatic building collisions are preventable–passing this bill will have benefits for biodiversity, the welfare of the birds, and the community members who witness bird strikes across the District.
Here are some of the reasons I support this bill:
- Building collisions are one of the top human-made killers of birds in the U.S. Birds do not see the glass, and up to 1 billion birds are killed every year in the U.S. when they try to fly through windows.
- Over 700 cases of building collisions were documented in downtown DC alone in 2021, a rise of 250% since a decade prior.
- The extra cost for bird-friendly design is small. In fact, it is often zero, if bird-friendly features such as louvers or screens are included in a building for other reasons. Scientists and manufacturers have also developed many bird-safe glass products that typically add no more than one-tenth to one-half of one percent of construction cost.
The rapid increase in construction of new glass buildings has exacerbated the bird collision problem and warrants a swift response — the situation only gets worse with each new glass building. Please vote to join New York City, San Francisco, Portland, Toronto, the states of Illinois and Minnesota, and the many other jurisdictions that already have bird-safe building design laws in place. Please pass DC’s Migratory Local Wildlife Protection Act of 2022 now.
Thank you,
