Human-made hazards abound
It’s difficult being a wild creature in the human landscape. Dangers lurk around every corner and navigating them is a challenge. Look out your window and you’re likely to see at least a couple hazards for our furred and feathered friends, in fact your window could be a hazard.
SOAR admits most patients because of human-bird interaction that has gone wrong — shotgun pellets in the bird, bird being hit by a vehicle, bird’s nest tree cut down, birds colliding with large windows or high-tension wires, birds swallowing lead tackle or fishing hooks, birds being electrocuted, and birds eating spent lead hunting ammunition just to name a few.
Many human-wildlife interactions can have a better outcome with a bit of intervention.
- Ammunition
- Learn about the effectiveness of nonlead ammunition (particularly copper) and share your knowledge with hunters. Here’s a short video from our friends at Hunting With Nonlead talking about making the switch! Visit this page for more info, too!
- Power Lines
- Find out whether your utility has an avian protection plan. If they don’t, they should consider adopting one. An APP helps keep animals, equipment, and people safe. Learn more about the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee and avian protection plans here.
- Bird safe power poles – Raptor Resource Project blog 11/26/12, scroll down just a bit to get to the entry on the 26th.
- Utility installs insulators to ‘eagle-proof’ power lines – Cedar Rapids Gazette posted 10/25/2015
- Perch plans for bird safe power poles on Flickr
- Lights, buildings, and building glass
- FLAP – Fatal Light Awareness Program has info on how to reduce bird window collisions and yes, the group is from Canada, but collisions are collisions!
- Make your own Acopian Bird Savers to prevent bird collisions with windows.
- Learn how the Bell Museum designed the windows in their new building!