Chicago’s McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North America, was recently responsible for the deaths of at least 1,000 small birds that crashed into its thick glass walls.
According to the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (CBCM), a volunteer conservation project dedicated to the protection of migratory birds, on October 5, the carcasses of at least 1,000 small birds, including Tennessee warblers, hermit thrush, and American woodcocks were found around McCormick Place. They all died after colliding with the iconic building’s transparent glass walls, which birds simply cannot detect. The CBCM said that this was the highest number of crash-caused bird deaths that the group recorded from the grounds of one building in a single day. Unfortunately, the number of deaths may actually be much higher, because many birds continue to fly after suffering serious injuries only to die hours later.
