The magnificent birds of prey at the Chouette à Voir bird sanctuary southeast of Montreal can take your breath away, but unfortunately each animal has a sad story.
“This one that was hit by a car,” said veterinarian and Chouette à Voir founder Dr. Guy Fitzgerald.
Chouette à Voir is part of a network of rehabilitators that care for 400 injured birds injured of prey each year. They’re caring for a snowy owl hit by a plane, a bald eagle hit by a car, but one of the most common reasons birds end up there is collisions with windows.
“There are hundreds of millions of birds throughout North America that hit windows and die or are injured,” Fitzgerald explained.
There’s a renewed focus on the issue after the death of an owl named Flaco in New York City. The bird escaped the Central Park Zoo in 2023 and gained fame for successfully living in the Big Apple for a year. Last month, however, his life ended after a fatal collision with a window.
He says there are more birds of prey around you than you think, and wants you to understand why they crash.
In certain lighting conditions, a window can be almost like a mirror. If birds of prey try to attack smaller prey near a backyard bird feeder, for example, they can be fooled.
“They can see the reflection of a bird trying to escape, and they hit the window,” he said. “Put the bird feeder as far as possible from windows or very close to the windows, because in between, the bird will have room to pick up speed and impact on the windows. If the feeder is near the window, it won’t have time to get speed and hit the window.“
If a window is too clear they might try to fly through, or go after a small animal inside.
Some cities in the U.S. are now demanding new constructions, include a special coating on windows to make them more visible to birds.
He wants to see it happen here too.
“It’s a wish,” he said. “As with anything in society, if we want to resolve some problems, it costs something. We have to think about the environmental cost of many things we’re doing as humans.“
The day Global News visited the bird shelter, a Cooper’s hawk that had hit a window months earlier, was ready to be released back into the wild.
Employee and science student Thierry Gaucher got to do the honours in front of an audience of children and their parents on spring break.
“I’ll never forget this experience,” he said through a satisfied smile. “I’ll have probably a smile on my face for the whole afternoon. It’s just wonderful.”
Countless other birds will never have this kind of happy ending.
“It’s our responsibility to help these birds that were injured by us in the first place,” said Gaucher.
Chouette à Voir is open to the public and has dozens of species of birds on display.
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