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Vessel strikes are a leading cause of whale mortality

Whales are vulnerable to collisions with all vessel types, sizes, and classes throughout the ocean. As our waterways become increasingly congested, high-traffic areas often intersect key marine mammal habitats. In California, grey whales are the most commonly reported victims of vessel strikes. Along the Atlantic coast, it’s the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. In the Mediterranean, vessel strikes are the leading cause of mortality due to human activity for fin whales and sperm whales. Regardless of location and species, these strikes are often deadly for whales and cause significant damage to vessels.

Luckily, we know the solution—slow vessels down. Public whale sightings submitted via Whale Alert help establish speed zones, warnings, and other measures to reduce vessel speeds and lower risks to whales.

Approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by the ocean, which is—perhaps unsurprisingly given its size—home to over 90% of the planet’s living species, from plants and fish to reptiles and mammals.

The ocean also plays a critical ecological role. It supports aquatic phytoplankton, which produce an estimated 50% of the oxygen that we breathe and act as one of the largest carbon sinks on the planet, sequestering vast amounts of atmospheric CO2 and helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.

However, despite the ocean playing such a significant role in the health of the planet and being home to a plethora of animal and plant species, it is under constant threat due to a variety of human activities.

That’s why, at IFAW, we work hard to protect marine habitats and the species that live in them. As part of our marine conservation work, we’re campaigning to reduce shipping speeds and reroute shipping lanes. We also rescue marine animals like dolphins that have fallen victim to the threats listed below.

In this blog, we look at five of the biggest threats to life in our ocean and explore the efforts being made to protect one of our most valuable resources.

1. Ocean noise

Often overlooked because it can’t be seen, ocean noise is a significant threat to a number of marine species. Animals like whales and dolphins that hunt and communicate using sound are severely impacted by excessive noise caused by shipping activity, military sonar, and seismic exploration by oil and gas industries. This noise can disturb and disorient animals, preventing them from finding food, meeting a mate, and detecting predators—ultimately threatening their very survival.

Dustin Partridge is all too familiar with the “thunk” of a bird hitting a window. Working in New York City as director of conservation and science for NYC Bird Alliance, he’s surrounded by a cityscape that kills as many as 230,000 of them a year.

Every time he’s heard that sound, he says, he’s hoped for the best—that the bird was only momentarily stunned and eventually bounced back. After three years spent investigating the aftermath of avian collisions with buildings, though, he harbors no illusions about the odds of a happy outcome.

The results of that work, a study coauthored by Partridge and published last week in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed the records of more than 3,100 collision victims brought to wildlife rehabilitators, representing 152 species. It found that about 60 percent of those birds ended up dying, far more than previously thought.

That’s in the best-case scenario, when an injured bird receives care, Partridge notes. The vast majority don’t—and now he’s rethinking those stunned birds he’s watched take flight after a crash: “That injured bird that flew off? That bird most likely didn’t survive.”

Based on that 60 percent death rate, the researchers reached a striking conclusion: Collisions with buildings could kill well over 1 billion birds per year in the United States alone. That adds significantly to the generally accepted range established by a 2014 Smithsonian study, which estimated that the fatality figure sits between 365 million and 988 million.

The revision makes buildings an even greater factor than was previously known in the estimated loss of a quarter of North America’s birds over the past half-century. And unlike other sources of danger, windows take avian lives indiscriminately, Partridge says, killing birds that otherwise might have survived and reproduced for years. “The majority of the birds that we found in collisions were otherwise completely healthy,” he says. “And to me, that’s terrifying.”

Building collisions are not a new hazard for birds—they’ve been observed since the 19th century. But the widespread use of glass in today’s built environment has created many more opportunities for misfortune, because birds are largely unable to perceive it. They’re particularly liable to crash into windows that reflect nearby greenery or the sky. Buildings of any size can attract bird collisions but the vast majority occur at homes and low-rise buildings, not skyscrapers.

Artificial lighting, which is thought to disrupt birds’ ability to use the sky as a compass, exacerbates the danger to nocturnal migrants. When they’re drawn into areas with bright lights, they can be knocked off track, becoming disoriented and exhausted. Together, concentrations of glass and lighting can spell disaster. Last October, for example, nearly 1,000 birds fatally collided with the Lakeside Center at Chicago’s McCormick Place in a single night.

At NYC Bird Alliance, Partridge helps coordinate Project Safe Flight, an initiative that works to reduce collisions in New York by monitoring where and when they take place. That’s why he knew prior estimates of the scale of collisions have a blind spot: their reliance on carcass recoveries. That leaves out birds that don’t die on impact or are swept away, lost in shrubbery, or otherwise go undiscovered.

So, he and his colleagues took a different approach. They gathered documentation from wildlife rehabilitators across the Northeast, taking note of where and how collisions occurred, which species were involved, what injuries resulted, and the outcome of the care. The results showed that a majority of birds that succumbed to their injuries did so after at least a day.

Daniel Klem, Jr., a Muhlenberg College ornithologist and expert on bird collisions, praised the researchers for using “responsible, sophisticated modeling to support their conclusions.” For his part, Klem believes that building strikes cause far more deaths than even the new paper suggests; he published findings earlier this year estimating U.S. collision mortality at somewhere between 1.3 billion and 3.5 billion birds, and possibly much higher. His study used 1,356 observations of window collisions to show that many strikes leave no mark on the glass and no nearby carcass, even if they frequently result in birds dying. “They’re indiscriminately being killed,” Klem says. “We’re producing more and more glass in the environment in urban, suburban and rural areas that are killing these animals.”

Though collision estimates are rising, so is recognition of the problem. More architects and designers are employing bird-safe glass and decals or screens that make windows more visible. Local advocates are putting pressure on building owners and managers to employ best practices—efforts that bore fruit at McCormick Place, which is currently adding bird-friendly window film to the Lakeside Center, just in time for migration season.

Some legislators have also shown a willingness to intervene for bird safety. Last year, Connecticut joined Illinois and Minnesota in passing “lights out” bills to reduce non-essential outdoor lighting at state-managed buildings during migration seasons. After the beloved New York City Eurasian Eagle-Owl Flaco died by flying into a building—a collision possibly related to the high dose of rat poison in his system—lawmakers renamed a bill to require bird-friendly design the “FLACO Act.”

One reason to feel empowered: Anyone who lives near a window has an opportunity to take action, says Connie Sanchez, program manager for Audubon’s Bird-friendly Buildings initiative. She urges people to explore ways to increase the visibility of transparent and reflective surfaces in their homes and around their neighborhoods.

“It’s been great to see this traction as we build more awareness of the problem, and to get more people involved in this—not just those that are interested in birds and wildlife,” Sanchez says. “It’s a problem we can really do something about.”

Contact:

Mari Galloway, Wildlands Network, (209) 373-9973, mari@wildlandsnetwork.org

J.P. Rose, Center for Biological Diversity, (408) 497-7675, jrose@biologicaldiversity.org

Sacramento, California — February 19, 2025 — Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank) introduced Assembly Bill 902 today that pushes regional planning and transportation agencies to prioritize wildlife connectivity and improve road safety in California.

The Connected Communities Act would require agencies tasked with regional transportation planning to consider how development and road projects would affect wildlife movement and design projects to minimize the creation of new barriers.

“Wildlife connectivity is one of those bipartisan issues that lawmakers and their constituents deeply care about,” said Assemblymember Nick Schultz. “It’s common sense for governmental agencies to come together and protect California’s unique and abundant wildlife. I want future generations to know that we took special care not to destroy precious habitat when planning new roads and development.”

Transportation projects and other development can cut into wildlife habitat, isolating deer, pumas, newts, and other animals. Without the ability to roam and find suitable mates, animals can suffer from inbreeding and other serious genetic diseases. Roads and freeways that slice up wildlife habitat can also be dangerous because of the increased chances of wildlife-vehicle collisions.

“Poorly planned roads and development can be deadly for animals and people alike, so I deeply appreciate this important legislative move to improve wildlife connectivity,” said J.P. Rose, urban wildlands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Mountain lions and desert tortoises don’t understand the borders of different government agencies, but those agencies have to work together to make sure animals can move around safely to find food and mates. We can protect California’s rich but fragile biodiversity by planning for future growth without creating more barriers.”

Regional agencies like the Southern California Association of Governments and Metropolitan Transportation Commission are tasked with guiding long-range transportation and influencing local land-use planning. There are 43 regional transportation agencies and 18 metropolitan planning organizations across the state.

“The Connected Communities Act marks a crucial step toward ensuring that California’s roads and development projects are aligned with ongoing state and federal efforts to reconnect and restore our increasingly fragmented landscapes for the benefit of both wildlife and humans,” said Mari Galloway, California program director at Wildlands Network. “By designing road infrastructure with wildlife movement in mind, we can restore essential habitat connections, reduce dangerous wildlife-vehicle collisions, and create a safer, more resilient future for all.”

A.B. 902 would require these agencies to prioritize wildlife connectivity and consult with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to minimize wildlife barriers in transportation planning.

The Connected Communities Act, sponsored by the Center and Wildlands Network, builds upon existing legislation aimed at improving government coordination to encourage better wildlife movement.

The Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act of 2022 requires Caltrans to incorporate wildlife connectivity in the planning and designing transportation projects. The Room to Roam Act of 2024 requires local agencies to include wildlife connectivity in their general plans. The two bills signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom were authored by former Assemblymember Laura Friedman and sponsored by the Center and Wildlands Network.

Since 1991, Wildlands Network has been reconnecting, restoring, and rewilding North America so that life in all of its diversity can thrive.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

A memorial to Flaco the Eurasian Eagle-Owl was started after his death in February. Photo by Rhododendrites, courtesy of WikiCommons.

A necropsy on the body of Flaco, the famous Eurasian Eagle-Owl that captivated New Yorkers, has revealed a grim and sobering reminder of the impacts of pesticides on wildlife. While traumatic injuries from a window collision — an all-too-common occurrence that kills hundreds of millions of birds each year — ultimately caused Flaco’s death, the well-loved owl was also found to be carrying lethal levels of rodenticide. For over a year, Flaco had survived outside of the Central Park Zoo after his enclosure was vandalized and he got out.

When he collided with a glass window of a building in New York City’s Upper West Side in late February, the extremely high levels of anticoagulant rodenticide in his system were likely debilitating. This kind of rodenticide works by thinning the blood and preventing coagulation. At low levels, a bird that has ingested rodenticide may appear sluggish, weak, and disoriented. Higher levels of exposure can cause bleeding and lead to shock and death in animals. The effects of rodenticide can linger in the body for months and compound over time as the animal ingests more poison. They can cause seizures, kidney failure, muscle weakness, and eventually, death.

“Flaco’s death tells a story all too familiar for raptors: habitat loss drives adaptation to urbanized areas, and urbanized areas attract rodents, which people want to control with chemicals,” said Hardy Kern, American Bird Conservancy’s (ABC) Director of Government Relations. “Flaco’s death is indicative of the unintended consequences of rampant overuse of these chemicals.”

The widespread use of pesticides (the umbrella term encompassing insecticides, rodenticides, and other related products), whether used to control mice or combat weeds, has profound and cascading effects. The consequences of these poisons can ripple out far beyond their intended targets. Rats and mice that have ingested rodenticides tend to move sluggishly, making them easy targets for birds of prey. For a bird of Flaco’s size — the Eurasian Eagle-Owl is one of the world’s largest owl species, with a wingspan that can reach an impressive six feet — one poisoned rat may not have killed him, but the accumulation over time can be deadly. The necropsy and toxicology testing by the veterinary team at the Bronx Zoo revealed Flaco had ingested four different rodenticides with anticoagulant properties. He was also carrying high levels of pigeon herpesvirus, a virus carried by healthy feral pigeons that can be harmful to birds of prey, causing inflammation and damaging tissue.

“When four different anticoagulants are found in the same bird, we can’t ask for a clearer need for action,” said Kern. “Sadly, this illustrates the impacts these chemicals have on native birds of prey like Red-tailed Hawks and screech-owls. We need to reduce our dependence on anticoagulant rodenticides. Viable alternatives exist and numerous strategies are possible.”

Flaco’s toxicology testing also showed the presence of a substance that has been banned in the U.S. since the 1970s: DDE, a breakdown of the agricultural pesticide, DDT. A massive effort, spurred on by the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, led to the banning of the pesticide. DDT weakened the eggshells of birds like the Brown Pelican and Peregrine Falcon, leading to precipitous declines for some species that are still recovering today. The presence of this DDT breakdown product in Flaco’s blood decades later is a chilling reminder of the long-lasting effects of human actions on wildlife and the environment.

Today, common pesticides pose a similarly grave threat to birds and other wildlife. ABC has championed regulations for harmful pesticides and continues to push for a safer regulatory process for these chemicals. Regulations are just one part of the solution to the pesticide problem. Join ABC in taking action on pesticides to protect birds from the painful and avoidable ends of birds like Flaco. Avoid the use of pesticides at home and let your representatives in Congress know you support closing loopholes in pesticide regulations.

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American Bird Conservancy (ABC) takes bold action to conserve wild birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. Inspired by the wonder of birds, we achieve lasting results for the bird species most in need while also benefiting human communities, biodiversity, and the planet’s fragile climate. Our every action is underpinned by science, strengthened by partnerships, and rooted in the belief that diverse perspectives yield stronger results. Founded as a nonprofit organization in 1994, ABC remains committed to safeguarding birds for generations to come. Join us! Together, we can do more to ensure birds thrive.