Over a billion birds die from striking U.S. buildings each year — maybe many more

The death toll is probably much higher than previously thought, U.S. researchers said. Light pollution that lures birds to urban areas is a particular problem.

By Rachel Pannett
August 8, 2024 at 1:59 a.m. EDT

The majority of birds that are injured or stunned colliding into buildings don’t recover, a new U.S. study has found, which could push estimates for the number of birds killed flying into buildings far above 1 billion a year.

Building collisions are a significant threat to wild birds. Current estimates of U.S. mortality rates from building crashes are based only on the number of birds found dead or mortally injured, not those that die later from their injuries.

In the latest study, published in the journal PLOS One on Wednesday, the researchers looked at birds that were taken to wildlife rehabilitation centers to assess their long-term survival rates.

The researchers studied cases from the northeastern United States between 2016 and 2021. They examined the records of over 3,100 building collisions with 152 different bird species and found about 60 percent of the birds taken to rehabilitation centers died, either by succumbing to their injuries or euthanasia. … “Our findings are especially concerning when considering that death rates in the wild may be even higher than 60 percent if collision victims are not found and treated by rehabilitators,” the study’s authors wrote.

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By Rachel Pannett
Rachel Pannett joined the Post's foreign desk in 2021 after more than a decade with The Wall Street Journal, where she was deputy bureau chief for Australia and New Zealand. Twitter