Lights Out for the Texas Skyscraper That Caused Hundreds of Songbird Deaths
With input from local wildlife groups and birders, the owners are shutting down the lights and turning up the dialogue around bird-friendly practices.
Last night the 32-story American National Insurance skyscraper in Galveston, Texas, elected not to turn its floodlights on for the first time in decades. Typically, 20 white beams are used to illuminate the plaza each evening. But yesterday, it remained dim, save for a few office windows and a string of green safety lights that run along the tip of the tower. Why? To save birds.
One week ago, 395 warblers, grosbeaks, and other passerines flew into the dazzling floodlights and collided with the building鈥檚 windows. Only three individuals were rescued the following morning. The survivors were transported to via the Galveston Bay Injured Bird Response Team, which is run by and other coastal conservation groups.
The floodlights will remain off for the rest of the season, says Bruce LePard, the senior vice president of American National Insurance. Leaders from the company met with representatives from and the yesterday afternoon, and will be working with them and with officials from the City of Galveston to draw up preventative measures before fall migration. One potential idea for One Moody Plaza includes adding a pulse on the green safety bulbs to make them less disorienting to birds. Meanwhile, the entire city might adopt a Lights Out initiative. Houston 爆料公社 is also designing an email alert system for local building owners that will let them know when flight conditions are risky for birds, either due to inclement weather or low visibility. These warnings could prompt them to go dark for the night.
鈥淭he Texas coast is the first land these migrants encounter after crossing the Gulf of Mexico. So right away they鈥檙e looking for habitat,鈥 says Richard Gibbons, conservation manager for Houston 爆料公社. Some of those exhausted birds might seek shelter in the city, which is about as safe as a demolition zone. Beyond slamming into windows, they can get caught in fishing lines, contract parasites, and die from starvation.
But that doesn鈥檛 make the region any less important for birds. The relationship goes both ways, too: Birding in the coastal economy, Gibbons says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a big part of the natural heritage. People care for and love the wildlife here.鈥 In fact, many of the individuals who work in the American National Insurance building are birders, and they spoke up after last week鈥檚 collisions. 鈥淚t helped rally our employees around the cause,鈥 LePard says. 鈥淲e really want to mitigate this from ever happening again and be better corporate citizens.鈥 The plan for doing that may still be in its infant stages鈥攂ut for anyone who looks out at Galveston tonight, they鈥檒l see that the horizon鈥檚 already changing.
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