Throughout the fall semester, students, faculty and staff have been disturbed to find that the death of many birds has occurred. Most dead birds have been found around buildings with large windows including the Giddens Learning Center (GLC), Bush Memorial Library (BML) and West Hall.

This is not an uncommon occurrence s, as glass windows tend to reflect whatever is outside, which to a bird’s eye will look like more space to fly through. According to an article from the American Bird Conservancy, in the U.S. alone, it is estimated that building collisions kill over one billion birds annually, especially during the fall and spring seasons when a large number of birds migrate. However, many said they have noticed a significant amount more this year than previous, including Associate Professor of Education and Co-Program Director of Environmental Studies Patty Born. Born has also previously worked as a bird rehabilitator.

“I’ve never in the nine years I’ve been here seen quite such a number of dead birds every day around campus,” Born said.

Director of Facilities and Construction Management Rob Johnston reported that he saw a hawk on campus that is chasing and feeding on smaller birds.

“What the hawk does is it flies into the bushes to get them to fly up, because it catches them in the air, and it’ll kill it on the ground and then take it up into a tree branch and eat it or eat it on the ground,” Johnston said.

Johnston also added that he noticed this occurrence in buildings such as the GLC where there are three walls that corner birds, leading to more difficult flying conditions.

The exact number of bird deaths on campus by the time of publication is unknown. Sophomore Eren Rawn, who has been documenting and taking photos of dead birds they found on campus counted 17 between Nov. 17-21. Some common species found dead at Hamline include cedar waxwings and robins.

There have been discussions within the Hamline Undergraduate Student Congress (HUSC) on what to do about all the dead birds found on campus and what to do to prevent them from dying in the first place. However, while there is support within HUSC on taking action, there is also some financial concern. Sustainability Representative and junior Cece Chmelik pointed out that although this is a significant issue, some individuals within HUSC do not believe that this is an issue worth spending money on.

“I would say there’s a good amount of support in HUSC and that we will be able to start this up again next semester and get something written,” Chmelik said, “But there are people on HUSC who don’t really see it as a viable thing to spend money on, especially when it comes to the capital improvement fund that we have.”

Johnston and the rest of the facilities team are actively working on coming up with solutions to address the issue as well. Johnston started adding bird shaped stickers to windows in GLC and is keeping track of where birds are dying.

“All my team is working with me on this, so they know when they’re out and about, I want to know where they find dead birds and stuff like that, ‘cause I’m thinking through time I’ll be able to determine areas on campus more susceptible to having birds hit the windows and then we can try to come up with some preventative measures,” Johnston said.