Bob CollinsBirds are having a tough time this with week with the two area newspapers.
Over the weekend, the Star Tribune editorial board said the controversy over the Minnesota Vikings’ refusal to install glass more “friendly” to birds in its new stadium is overblown.
Now, the Pioneer Press’ Joe Soucheray has dismissed the complaints that the planned glass will result in birds dying by ramming into the stadium during migratory seasons.
The new Vikings stadium, for example, is predicted to become so injurious to birds that the Audubon Society and others are urging the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Commission to switch from a clear glass exterior to a cloudy glass. There is probably no more evidence for a bird not crashing into cloudy glass than there is evidence that hundreds of millions of birds die each year crashing into tall office buildings.
Where are these dead birds? The great cities of the world, London, Paris, New York, should all be disaster areas, with mounds of dead birds piled up on Park Avenue or the Champs-Elysees. Walked both streets. Never saw a dead bird.
“I don’t think birds fly fast enough to die after crashing into windows,” he writes. “They glance off, maybe get a headache, but they don’t die or else we would be stepping over them to get into our tall office buildings.”
