From the Winter 2025 challenge of Dwelling Chook journal. Subscribe now.
I’ve written earlier than in regards to the importance of inspiring folks with hope, even when the chances seem robust. Worry is usually simpler within the brief time period, however hope is extra enduring. In that vein, it’s such a pleasure to learn on this challenge in regards to the modifications which were made to Chicago’s McCormick Place convention heart to keep away from a repeat of the large bird-strike occasion that passed off in the course of the 2023 fall migration, when near 1,000 birds had been killed in a single evening by a single constructing.
The options have been to end up the lights at evening and canopy the home windows of the conference heart with a 2-inch grid of tiny stickers, giving birds an opportunity to see and keep away from the glass. The affect has been quick and large when it comes to a discount within the variety of collisions. We’ve experienced the identical impact right here on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the place comparatively cheap modifications to our home windows have considerably decreased deadly hen collisions. It’s the kind of impact that has impressed communities throughout the counattempt to champion bird-safe buildings.
To develop that success, we wish to study what conjures up folks to hunt out nature-positive options. On the Cornell Lab, we’re well-known for our expertise in “science information,” and that continues to be the guts of our work, however we’re additionally concerned about “folks information”: what strikes folks’s heads and hearts. Within the case of bird-friendly buildings, as an illustration, we’ve been operating trials to seek out out what conjures up folks to take motion: an emotional plea utilizing pictures of useless birds; a logical case based mostly on technical details about the effectiveness of potential options; conservation arguments in regards to the affect of window collisions on hen populations; or a social name to motion based mostly on what neighbors and associates are doing. It seems that, within the case of home windows, essentially the most highly effective arguments are based mostly on effectivity and value: do these new options actually work, and the way a lot will I’ve to pay?
Will the identical strategy work for different conservation selections? We don’t but know, however it’s a query that has been on my thoughts as I watched—and listened to—fall migration over Cayuga Lake in Upstate New York. It’s humbling to see huge flights of birds as they depart the good boreal forests and tundra of the North and head to their houses in Central and South America. It’s additionally a vivid reminder of why migratory birds are so weak to threats like constructing collisions; they now face rising dangers at every stage of their extraordinary lives. And if my hope ever wanes, I can take solace within the phrases of a neighborhood hero. Close to the shores of Cayuga Lake is the grave of Carl Sagan, the legendary Cornell College astronomy professor. In his epic ebook Pale Blue Dot, Sagan wrote one of the evocative calls I do know for valuing life on this planet, impressed by a picture taken by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft:
“Look once more at that dot. That’s right here. That’s residence. That’s us. On it everybody you’re keen on, everybody , everybody you ever heard of, each human being who ever was, lived out their lives … There’s maybe no higher demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant picture of our tiny world. To me, it belowscores our accountability to deal extra kindly with each other, and to protect and cherish the pale blue dot, the one residence we’ve ever recognized.”