Bird Mortality: Invasive Species Book

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Invasive Species, Oil Spill, Waterfowl Hunting, Bird Strike, Habitat Destruction, Bycatch, Towerkill, Muttonbirding, Bird Abatement, Bird-Skyscraper Collisions. Excerpt: Bird-skyscraper collisions is a problem in urban areas . Several major cities like Toronto in Canada and New York City in the United States have programs to abate this, such as Toronto's Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) and New York City's Lights Out New York, a program of New York City Audubon an environmental organization. According to FLAP, between one and nine million birds die each year in the city from hitting skyscrapers due to mistaking reflective windows for open sky, or being drawn to lights at night .Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at The risks that birds create in certain circumstances have brought the need for bird abatement . Amongst those risks are loss of investments in farming and aviculture , aircraft crashes , and bacteriological and viral contamination . With more recent outbreaks of Newcastle's disease and the Avian Flu , it is reasonable to expect that bird abatement will become a larger industry.Problems Damage to farming When a flock of birds descends upon a farmer's field, they can eat up the seed and produce, damaging a farmer's crop. Canadian Geese , once a fully protected species of migratory bird , have become so comfortable at some farms as to abandon their migrations and take up residency. Crows , starlings , bluejays and many other species also pose a threat to crops.Raptors and other predators are an age-old concern for those who raise gamebirds and pigeons as livestock .Aircraft crashes Birds tend to see the open grasslands of an airport as an oasis. They quickly become desensitized to the planes, and set up residency, however birds flying ne...