New Apple Store A Hazard To Birds, Rescue Group Says

(CBS) — The new Apple Store on the river downtown has impressed Apple fans and most of the architecture critics, but not everybody is happy.

WBBM’s Steve Miller reports.

Thrushes. Sparrows. American woodcocks. All migrate through Chicago.

And all have crashed into glassy downtown buildings.

Now, there’s one more building.

“It is a new threat and a new hazard for the downtown area, in an area that already has many buildings with a lot of glass,” says Annette Prince, director of Chicago Bird Collision Monitors.

They are the volunteers who pick up stunned, injured and dead birds that have hit buildings.

She says the Apple Store is especially hazardous.

“Unfortunately, we’re finding that they leave the light on all night long. And we’ve reached out to Apple to talk to them. We haven’t heard back yet.”

Prince says the trees in the Apple Store don’t help.

When the bird-collision group find birds that have struck buildings, about 60 percent are dead, Prince says. But 40 percent are just injured and many can be helped.

“I’ve had volunteers call — very discouraged and disappointed — to say now there’s a new place to find birds,” Prince says.

Worse, its location along the river means seagulls hang out to prey on fallen birds, sometimes before her volunteers can get there.

Prince hopes Apple will turn off the lights at night, just during migration season.

WBBM has reached out to Apple for a response.

from CBS Chicago http://ift.tt/2zbNxDx