Ontario cities are potential bird death traps and now a petition is looking to change that

When it comes to why North American bird populations have seen sharp declines in the last 50 years, cats seem to get a bad rap, while buildings fly under the radar. 

Take for instance the International and Graduate Affairs Building at Western University in London, Ont. Built in 1986, its gleaming exterior makes it a standout on a campus known for its stately and elegant-looking buildings.

What makes it lovely however, also makes it a death trap – if you're a bird. 

"I think it's probably killing 150 birds every year," said Brendon Samuels is a PhD student in biology who studies the reasons birds fly into windows on buildings.

He said birds don't see glass when they look at a window pane, instead they see the reflection projected on it, which, to them, is a clear flight path. 

Everyone's heard that 'thump' at the window

Samuels does regular rounds picking up bird carcasses to document the deadly toll the places we live and work take on our fine feathered friends. 

He said everyone he's met has heard a thump at the window, only to find a bird lying dead or stunned on the ground nearby. 

"I think it's such a funny problem because people always have a story about the time it's happened to them."

"If a bird hits a window at high speed and flies away, we assume 'oh it's fine,' but actually a lot of birds die a few minutes later and we have no way of knowing." 

It's why Samuels said he likes to ask people if they've stood by the window that's struck by a bird, to hear how often it actually happens. 

"You're able to build the logic around how many windows there actually are out there that are continuously threatening birds, at all hours of the day, at all days of the year. It really is a mind boggling thing for people to wrap their heads around." 

"I think within the province of Ontario you're looking at several million birds that are dying preventibly from collisions with structures every year." 

How bird-safe standards could save millions of birds

To save those millions of birds, a national bird advocacy group wants to change the Ontario Building Code, so that all new construction adheres to something called bird-safe standards. 

"A bird safe building are those that make a concerted effort at light reduction at night and placing very specific types of markers on windows during the day to make that glass visible to birds," said Michael Mesure, the executive director and co-founder of FLAP Canada, whose acronym stands for fatal light awareness program. 

Some cities, such as Toronto, Ottawa and London, are already doing it to a certain extent. Mesure said those programs are piecemeal and usually guidelines rather than actual rules. 

Mesure said the standards need to be put into the Ontario Building Code, not only to make the requirements uniform throughout the province, but to bring reluctant developers and municipalities too strapped for resources to do this on their own into compliance. 

"The voluntary approach for action only goes so far and the distance it goes, we'll never get this under control. The only way really that we can see constructive progress be made in the long term is a law in place to protect birds from this problem and standards."

Mesure said protecting birds will help with insect infestations, such as the blight of gypsy moth caterpillars that blanketed Ontario this summer and, some claim, can even contribute to the economy in the form of tourism. 

The only problem is cost, which advocates of bird safe standards are cagey about. They say the size and amount of glass in buildings varies so widely, that it's hard to nail down a price. 

Still, CBC News was able to obtain a range from $9 to $15 a square foot to retrotfit a building's exterior, which includes the first four storeys.

As expensive as it might be, bird safe standards is an idea that's starting to catch on, especially as we realize the increasing cost our way of life is having on the planet and the creatures that share it with us. 

In New York, officials had to rethink the city's annual Tribute in Light, a yearly 9/11 memorial that shines two columns of light into the night sky by way of 88 spotlights, to mark the deaths of 2,753 people who perished in the twin towers.

The beams had to be shut off at 20 minute intervals last fall, after a study found the light was irresistibly attracting migrating birds by the hundreds of thousands.

Birds evolved to navigate by starlight on their long, exhausting annual flights to warmer climes and the bright lights of our cities are really messing them up. 

The phenomenon has been well documented, a third of all North American birds are threatened with extinction and the overall bird population has plummeted by three billion in the last 50 years - an overall loss of one in four birds.