"It is sad," says Judy Parker, who has begun scouring the streets near Hurontario St. and Burnhamthorpe Rd. on behalf of the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) which works to reduce the staggering total of deaths caused by building strikes during migration. "It is sad to pick a little dead body," she says. "But it's important to have someone notice that it died, and to have something useful come out of that.
"It's about the connection that happens when you hold a little bird and see how tiny it is. It moves me and I want to do something to say 'Thank you for being here.'"
FLAP has been operating since 1993 in Toronto, picking up injured and fatally-wounded birds and conducting educational programs with the operators of high-rise buildings, encouraging them to turn off lights at night and to make exterior changes to make their buildings more bird-friendly.
Striking urban structures in both daylight and at night causes a staggering number of deaths of migratory birds, many of them vulnerable species that are already at risk because of shrinking habitats and other threats, says Michael Mesure, executive director of FLAP.
Preventive measures, including input on building design, can make a huge difference, Mesure told The News. In one case several years ago, some 10,000 birds died in one night because they flew into the stacks of a hydro generation station in Kingston. When the floodlights were changed to strobes, the problem virtually disappeared, says Mesure.
FLAP has some 60 volunteers who try their best to deal with 940,000 structures in Toronto. Only a handful of those are trained volunteers who help revive and relieve birds who have been stunned, take injured birds to the Toronto Wildlife Centre or preserve the bodies of dead birds for study.
"Mississauga is on the migratory flight path and has all the characteristics of an urban centre where bird strikes will occur," says Mesure. "We really need to get something going out there (to attract more volunteers)."
FLAP has made arrangements to work with the City's animal control officers in a pilot project where the City will notify the group when damaged birds are found.
"We get all kinds of birds, woodcocks, sapsuckers, ovenbirds, grebes, and whippoorwills being injured," says Linda Dent of animal control. "A lot of the waterbirds just need a helping hand to get going again. We're hoping this project will raise some awareness and help gather some data so we can be more proactive."
Judy Parker, armed with a butterfly net and a cardboard box in which she resuscitates temporarily-stunned birds, will be out early for the next few weeks as the heaviest bird migration takes place. She's hoping other volunteers will soon join her.
The 56-year-old says humans would do well to assist their feathered friends.
"It's the classic case of the canary in the coal mine," she says. "Most of these migratory birds are indicator species for the health of our environment. They are tiny and many have a niche environment so they reflect many changes that have not yet had a negative impact on humans."
For more information, visit www.flap.org.
jstewart@mississauga.net
