Death Trap: Birds Keep Dying After Crashing Into NYC Condo

A ritzy condo in Central Park has become a death trap for migratory birds heading south for the winter.

Circa Central Park is an 11-story building on West 110th with multimillion dollar apartments. It was developed in 2017, but since then up to a dozen warblers die per day after crashing into its curved, glass facade, according to the New York Post, which noted that in May 2020, a whopping 28 birds were killed by the building in a single night.

"The location and design of Circa make it particularly dangerous to birds," said Dr. Dustin Partridge, the director of Conservation and Science at the New York City Audubon Society.

Volunteers for the nonprofit organization are tasked with having to collect the bodies of the birds from the front of the luxury building on a daily basis. And while exact figures of how many collisions occur, members of the public have reported seeing up to 14 crashes a day.

"I thought someone was shooting them down with a BB gun. I walked with my dog and there were eight of them lined up," Will Brand, a maintenance worker who lives in the building next door, told the Post.

"Terrible scene," Brand added. "Everybody [was] looking like what's going on here? It looked like a tragedy happened."

One resident who lives on the 11th floor of Circa told the Post that the building has been handing out window decals to stop the crashes — but Quayle noted that this may not be enough and that special fowl-friendly glass is needed.

"I don't know what else to do. I have all the decals, all the ribbons and they still hit the building," said the resident speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We asked them to look at more permanent treatments to the windows but I think it requires a lot of effort, like installation, and all of the residents would have to agree to it."

A woman who works for a resident who owns one of the top-floor condos also noted that some residents don't want to use the window decals.

"Some of the residents are reluctant because they're like, 'We paid for these massive apartments with these views but we don't feel like putting up stickers,' and that's really f****d if that can help, but I don't even think it's helping," she said.

In a statement to the Post, Partridge said the New York City Audubon Society has been working with residents of the building to find a possible other bird-saving solution and has made some progress.

"We're grateful that the residents of Circa are now working in collaboration with NYC Audubon and partners to address the problem of bird collisions," Partridge said.

"NYC Audubon's decades-long Project Safe Flight collisions research across the City's five boroughs shows that collisions with glass are a major threat to birds, killing up to a quarter million in New York City each year."

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