Why is the Chicago skyline so deadly for birds? And what is being done about it?
CHICAGO — Chicago’s famous skyline, renowned for its modern architecture and sweeping lakefront, carries another reputation, one that became glaringly apparent on the morning of October 5, 2023.
In a single day, more than 3,000 birds died after flying into a death trap of shiny glass boxes that makes up the city’s skyline.
For a city of millions, it was a devastating lesson about Chicago’s role. Most people may be unaware, that in the dark of night there is a dense path of birds migrating overhead from far reaching corners of the earth.
Carl Giometti is an architect and the former President of Chicago Ornithological Society.
“We’ll have nights there could be upwards of 200 million birds that will pass through this region,” he said.
Radar from Cornell’s lab of ornithology picks up the sheer numbers of migrating birds that use this ancient route that takes them directly through Chicago, every spring and fall.
“It’s an epic journey of thousands of miles that’s unfortunately going to end here on the streets of Chicago,” Giometti said.
Dave Willard from Chicago’s Field Museum has been archiving the carnage for more than 40 years. He has a sobering collection of more than 125 thousand winged creatures from across the globe, that died in Chicago after slamming into windows.
It was Willard who first discovered the shocking piles of birds on the ground outside McCormick place early that October morning.
“For a lot of people this is when they realized this is not just some trivial issue,” he said.
Giometti says the problem isn’t coming up with bird friendly building designs but the city’s will to implement them.
“The city has the ability to set their own policy for projects that go through the department of planning and development so this is something that if the will was there could happen very quickly, in a matter of weeks,” he said.
On Monday, Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development released its latest proposed construction guidelines, bulking up the current point system for developers that adhere to bird friendly design.
It’s a proposal without enough teeth for 2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins.
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“It has to go beyond suggestions and guidelines. It needs to have the force of law,” he said.
Hopkins introduced a bird friendly building ordinance that passed through city hall in 2020, yet he says it was largely ignored by the city Planning and Development Department.
In recent years, other large cities like New York and San Francisco have successfully implemented bird friendly laws that require developers to use patterned glass, netting and decorative features to prevent bird strikes.
After 10,000 people signed a petition demanding action, McCormick Place made some changes. They pull their shades and turn off the lights so it won’t draw birds to their two football fields worth of glass lining the lakefront.
But Giometti says it will take more than one to change Chicago’s reputation.
“That was just one building in one night. The thousands of birds have been happening every single year for years now, for decades,” he said.
According to the Chicago Bird Alliance, more than 10,000 migratory birds die in Chicago every year, taking a morbid toll a half a million over the last 50 years.
WGN reached out to the City’s Department of Planning and Development but they would not comment or do an interview on camera. There will however be an opportunity for the public to weigh in this Thursday beginning at 10 a.m. in City Council Chambers.
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