Window collisions kill hundreds of millions of birds annually in the US alone, causing acute trauma that is entirely preventable.
Window collision deaths cause acute trauma with significant welfare implications for individual birds. Direct fatal collisions involve rapid death from impact injury, but non-fatal strikes — which are likely more frequent — leave birds stunned, disoriented, and vulnerable for hours after impact. A stunned bird placed in a box to recover often dies from internal hemorrhage or shock. The scale makes window strikes one of the most significant human-caused wildlife welfare problems — hundreds of millions of individual suffering events annually in the US alone, from a problem that is largely solvable through building design and window treatment. The solutions exist; the barrier is awareness and implementation.