The Birding Deathtraps that I Loved

In last week’s column, I wrote about the excellent plan to turn out the lights on some buildings to help birds migrate safely through the city.

In this week’s column, I am going to continue the theme and dedicate a column to two of the most bird-deadly buildings that ever existed.

According to data printed in a study by Yigal Gelb and Nicole Delacretaz, these buildings were responsible for more bird deaths than any others in their area. In the four years these buildings were studied, 840 birds crashed to their death, 438 from the larger building, 402 from the smaller. The New York Audubon Society reported over 1000 birds dead and 500 injured in that time frame, although I’m not certain if their data was limited to only those two buildings. Either way, these buildings and the ones surrounding them were considered “death traps” for migrating birds.

The problem became so serious that nets had to be put on some windows, so that birds who flew into the buildings would hit soft mesh instead of hard glass. The nets acted as trampolines; birds would spring back from the glass unharmed. These nets were added in August 2000, and there were plans to add more in 2001. The Audubon Society reported the tenants of the buildings were eager to help the birds however they could by adding the nets and turning off the lights, and the bird-collision deaths appeared to be going down.

Unfortunately, no birds at all collide with these buildings any more. Why do I say “unfortunately?” Isn’t it good if birds don’t crash into a building or two?

Yes, of course it is. But not if terrorists crash into them first.

The buildings I’m writing about, of course, were World Trade Center 1 and World Trade Center 2, commonly known as the Twin Towers.

Despite their apparently injurious effects on our feathered friends, I loved these buildings, and to this day cannot look across the river to the Manhattan skyline without feeling sadness. Since I live in Bayonne, which is very close to New York, I feel sad a lot. On 9/11/01, I was working as a bus aide for the YMCA in the afternoon. The woman driving the bus had just found her brother, a fireman from a precinct in Brooklyn, had gone missing. Despite her bad news, she still managed to drive the bus and safely pick up the few children whose parents hadn’t signed them out early. Unfortunately, her brother was never recovered; his entire station house perished.

Reading about the effects of these glass buildings on the migrating birds fills me with sadness for the obvious reasons, but also with anger.

The New York Audubon society had a team of volunteers who monitored the WTC site during migration, ensuring that the birds were safe. No volunteers were killed on September 11, and since most of the critical windows were pretty low, I am assuming most of the kind tenants who cooperated with them also survived. (Most of the fatalities were at or above the collision sites.)

The Audubon Society volunteers were not able to continue their work for the rest of the 2001 fall migration, because they were, in their own words, “devastated.” I can only imagine the horror and fear the bird volunteer must have felt on 9/11.

Still, I wish that someone--perhaps not the bird-oriented Audubon Society, but some other organization--had been concerned about the effects of these buildings on human beings. Clearly, as it has been shown on various 9/11 science shows (which will no doubt have their annual airing next week), the structures could have been safer.

The Audubon Society is concentrating on having the replacement building be as bird-friendly as possible. I support their efforts, as long as it is safe for people as well.