News Environmental & Science Technology's Dr. Shannon P. Browne Leads Efforts for Safer Campus Conditions
Image Credit: Illustration by Valerie Morgan
We’ve all heard that awful moment: We might be in our kitchen, brewing an early morning coffee, or working late on the 10th floor of an office building when suddenly a bird flies head-on into a window with a sickening thwack.
Buildings pose an enormous threat to birds; according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, window strikes kill up to 976 million a year. At UMD, faculty members and students are studying how to make buildings friendlier to birds and are surveying carcasses to count these deadly collisions on campus.
At UMD, Dr. Shannon P. Browne, a lecturer in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, leads student volunteers—often members of the university’s student chapter of the Wildlife Society—around campus in autumn and spring, tracking how many and what kind of birds have died. The data can be used to determine which buildings are most threatening to birds and may contain clues on how to prevent deaths.
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