Nautilus

Rising Skyscrapers Are Sentencing Hundreds of Millions of Birds to Death a Year

Siegfried Layda/Getty Images

On a chilly day in Toronto, Michael Mesure, executive director of a local bird conservation group, leads me up several flights of stairs in City Hall. We walk down a hallway and there stands a large, white chest—a freezer—with a lid straining to close against its contents. Mesure removes a heavy Rubbermaid bin to reveal dozens of migratory birds of every size and plumage—hermit thrushes, common yellowthroats, white-crowned sparrows. Some look mummified in Saran wrap; others are frozen in plastic bags. There’s at least a hundred inside. “This is barely a sample of the birds we’ve picked up,” says Mesure.

Mesure is the founder of Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) Canada,

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Nautilus

Nautilus2 min read
The Rebel Issue
Greetings, Nautilus readers, and welcome to The Rebel Issue. Starting today through the end of April we’re going to bring you stories that revolve around the meaning of rebel. In our own happy rebellion against the conventions of science writing, we’
Nautilus8 min read
10 Brilliant Insights from Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett, who died in April at the age of 82, was a towering figure in the philosophy of mind. Known for his staunch physicalist stance, he argued that minds, like bodies, are the product of evolution. He believed that we are, in a sense, machi
Nautilus4 min readMotivational
The Psychology of Getting High—a Lot
Famous rapper Snoop Dogg is well known for his love of the herb: He once indicated that he inhales around five to 10 blunts per day—extreme even among chronic cannabis users. But the habit doesn’t seem to interfere with his business acumen: Snoop has

Related Books & Audiobooks