Wild Bird Window Strike Prevention

Window strikes kill an estimated 300 million to one billion birds annually in the United States alone, making glass one of the leading human-caused bird mortality sources.

Key Facts

Window strikes are the second largest human-caused source of bird mortality in North America after cats
Birds cannot perceive glass as a barrier and fly into reflections of sky and vegetation
Most window strikes occur on residential rather than commercial buildings
Patterned film, exterior screens, and ABC BirdTape reduce strike rates by over 90%
Many birds that survive initial impact die from internal injuries hours or days later

Welfare Considerations

Window strikes represent an invisible welfare crisis because each incident is brief and private, and dead birds are often removed before anyone notices. But the cumulative scale — hundreds of millions of birds annually — means that preventing window strikes is one of the highest-impact individual actions available for wild bird welfare. Solutions range from simple low-cost films applied to glass to architectural design standards for bird-safe buildings. The suffering of birds that survive impact with internal injuries and die slowly is an additional welfare cost that motivates urgent action.

What You Can Do

Apply patterned window film or ABC BirdTape to windows in your home, especially near feeders
Move bird feeders to within 3 feet of windows to reduce fatal strike velocity
Advocate for bird-safe building design requirements in local building codes
Support organizations tracking and monitoring window strike mortality to build the evidence base