In the past two days, a special "membrane" has been pasted on the outer wall of Binhai Building, Tencent's headquarters in Shenzhen. The two-story-high polka dot sticker on one side of Tencent Binhai Building is to allow birds to "see clearly" the glass. With this layer of film, birds can be prevented from hitting the glass of the building to the greatest extent and causing accidents.
A few months ago, Tencent employee Yulan joined a bird collision prevention project team voluntarily formed by employees. Dozens of volunteers, including her, conducted a month-long bird collision research in Tencent office buildings in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other places.
During the inspection, Yulan and the cleaning lady discovered that a total of 6 birds died 5 times in a short period of time under the glass curtain wall outside the Binhai Building. Their names are sparrows and spotted birds.
Bird strikes may sound strange, but the probability of them actually happening is much higher than we think. Just two weeks ago, the carcasses of 964 migratory birds were discovered in front of the McCormick Center in Chicago in one morning. All these birds died from bird strikes.
Bird collisions occur because the glass curtain wall is too "clean" and easily reflects nearby images, causing some "stupid birds" to mistakenly believe that they can pass through the trees or the sky, and hit the glass unprepared, causing injury or direct death.
According to research in North America, bird strikes are considered the second leading cause of bird death caused by humans, after domestic cat predation.
In Canada, approximately 25 million birds are killed each year due to bird collisions with buildings, and in the United States, the number reaches a staggering 365 million to 1 billion. (Data quoted from "Overview of the phenomenon of bird strikes against buildings and case analysis of systematic investigation". Biodiversity, 30, 21321.doi:10.17520/biods.2021321.)
Although my country's bird collision data is not yet clear, among the world's nine major migratory bird migration areas, four of them pass through China and cover almost the entire Chinese territory. This means that countless birds fly overhead every year.
According to statistics, my country's annual curtain wall production capacity far exceeds 100 million square meters, making it the world's largest curtain wall production and use country. The rapid development of cities and the rise of tall buildings have greatly increased the risk of "bird strikes".
According to the "National Bird Collision Prevention Action Network 2022 Annual Report", during the 2022 National Bird Collision Survey, volunteers from all over the country investigated nearly 700 buildings and found 154 bird collision incidents - among the dead individuals, there were many national second-level protected wild birds such as the red-throated songbird and the red-sided whiteeye.
The bird strike incident has also been on the "hot search".
In April this year, Zhao Li, an insect expert from Chengdu, Sichuan, discovered that many birds died after hitting the glass while passing by a commercial street in Dujiangyan, including the red-billed acacia, a national second-level protected wild animal.
An employee on Tencent's internal forum initiated a discussion: How can we avoid such a large-scale bird collision from happening again?
To prevent it from the root cause, you can design and build bird-friendly buildings, reduce the use of large areas of glass, or use glass designed to prevent bird collisions. In some European and American countries, there are already mature building codes.
For most existing buildings in China, it is easier to carry out "anti-bird collision modification".
Placing polka-dot pattern stickers with a spacing of no more than 5cm*5cm on glass windows allows birds to perceive the glass and can also effectively defend against it.
Therefore, we hope to make some changes to make glass more "friendly", so we have two-story polka dot stickers on the Binhai Building of Tencent's headquarters.
at the same time,Tencent Charity Foundation will continue to respond to the National Bird Collision Prevention Action Network initiative, actively responded to the bird-friendly building design and renovation plan mentioned in the "Shenzhen Biodiversity Conservation Action Plan (2020-2025)" issued by the Shenzhen Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau.