AVIAN COLLISIONS AT COMMUNICATION TOWERS -- Sources of Information

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Division of Migratory Bird Management first focused in detail on the growing problem of bird collisions with communication towers due to the attention drawn from a large, single-night kill of between 5,000- 10,000 Lapland Longspurs and other songbird species at 3 towers in western Kansas in 1998. Since then, the Service has developed a communication tower risk model (1998), convened a facilitated meeting of the various stakeholders (1999), cosponsored the first ever workshop on avian mortality at communication towers held at Cornell University (1999), convened and chaired the Communication Tower Working Group (1999) -- designed to determine through research what about towers attracts and not infrequently kills millions of migratory songbirds, sponsored publication of a detailed literature review (2000), helped develop voluntary tower siting guidelines for use by the industry (2000), and updated a mortality estimate for songbirds based on the exponentially growing number of communication towers being built nationwide (2001).

Several documents on this page are available in PDF format only and must be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader.

For the agenda and complete transcripts of a half day meeting held in August 1999 at Cornell University, represented by ornithologists, academicians, researchers, Federal agencies, industry and conservationists, see
http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/currentbirdissues/hazards/towers/agenda.html

For a review of the current literature from circa 1995 to 2000 regarding avian collisions with communication towers, see
http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/currentbirdissues/hazards/towers/review.pdf

For a review of literature from 1960 to 1998 regarding bird collisions with communication towers and other human-made structures, see
http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/currentbirdissues/hazards/towers/tower.html

For the Fish and Wildlife Service article on the current (2001) status of bird collisions with communication towers, and steps presently being taken to alleviate these problems, reference
http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/currentbirdissues/hazards/towers/abcs.html

For a copy of the Service's voluntary tower siting guidelines, and the Director's memo regarding these guidelines, see
http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/currentbirdissues/hazards/towers/comtow.html

Tower Site Evaluation Form available in Word or Acrobat PDF format.

For a timely, state-by-state review of the number of towers being constructed, pertinent information regarding bird-tower collision mortality, and an excellent link to other sites, see
www.towerkill.com