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Mark Oprea
The exterior of the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse will, after years of workarounds, be coated in a protective film to prevent bird collisions.
Birders can rejoice: one of the most lethal buildings to our feathered friends will not be as deadly anymore.
Well, at least come this fall, when Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse plans to coat the majority of its surrounding glass facade with a bird-protective film, which would save tens of thousands from smacking into it in the first place.
As Signal Cleveland first reported Wednesday, the Gateway Economic Development Corporation signed off on a deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers to pay $845,975 to wrap the Cavs’ home in Bird Divert, a thin film that acts as a caution light to birds while remaining relatively invisible to the human eye.
That expenditure, following two years searching for a workaround, comes as a gigantic win for Lights Out and other bird advocacy groups who work to prevent collisions. Delisting the FieldHouse as a building-of-concern that is, several sources said, a direct result of advocacy work in the past year.
“That’s by large the biggest offender in terms of bird collisions,” Matthew Schumar, a program coordinator at the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative, told Scene on Thursday. “On a busy day you can stand there on Huron, and watch as birds fall all around you.”
“This is great,” he added, “this is a huge step forward.”
Roughly 1.7 billion to 2 billion birds collide with buildings in America every year, according to the Audubon Society, mostly with glass-heavy, low-rise structures that blind eyes mid-flight. Most collisions happen just after dawn, and during the high migratory months in spring and early fall.
In Downtown Cleveland, one of the urban areas most prone to collisions in the Midwest, a handful of volunteers at Lights Out has been patrolling streets in the wee hours to rescue stunned birds, and preserve dead ones. Yet, due to the high amount of walking, lack of pay and early start time, the patrol group is hard pressed to fill its ranks.
“This should help though,” Tim Jasinski, a wildlife rehabilitation specialist at Lake Erie Nature & Science Center, said regarding the FieldHouse’s purchase. “What I’ve learned [with glass protection], is that there’s a really low chance a bird will smack that window—unless they’re being chased by a hawk and trying to get away.”
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Mark Oprea
Advocacy work from Lights Out, shown here attempting to rescue a warbler in front of the FieldHouse last year, influenced the Cavs’ decision.
Lights Out, which Jasinski helps manage, will still monitor the FieldHouse after Bird Divert is installed. Since March 15, the usual start of the spring migration, Jasinski said Lights Out’s catalogued “probably over 300” birds thus far, which was fewer than those collected in 2023.
And not just due to a skewed pattern. “A lot of it is just not having enough people,” he said.
Despite the short staff, Jasinski and his colleagues have worked in the past few years to put pressure on downtown property owners to consider making their windows less deadly. Those with high amounts of reflective, blinding glass, and near to open green spaces with trees to nestle in.
It was sometime in 2022 when, according to Schumar, he and others began talks with FieldHouse staff regarding the deadliness of their exterior. Schumar cited the Minnesota Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium, found to kill 100 birds a year, as good enough reason to reshape the arena.
Due to the costliness of installing Bird Divert—or Feather Friendly, its commonly-used competitor—Schumar said that FieldHouse’s team, lead by Michael Lathrop, the FieldHouse’s lead architect, tried to find cheaper workarounds. Turn their lights on earlier. Play a “predator-type” of sound, “like a raptor,” to scare birds away from collision.
“Anything they could try,” Schumar said, “before the step of having to treat the glass.”
In an interview with Scene, Susan Oguche, a spokesperson for the Cavs and the FieldHouse, admitted that Jasinski, Schumar and others at Lights Out played a part in the Bird Divert expenditure.
“I think when we realized it was an issue, we sought a community organization to partner with on a solution,” Oguche said. “The team is so relieved that we’ve been able to find a solution.”
Schumar sees it a different way. “It’s a PR move,” he said. “They can use it to their advantage.”
Manufactured in New Jersey, Bird Divert is a thin film that reflects ultraviolet light via a matrix pattern of hollow glass spheres about the size of dimes. It’s different than the light-diffusing stuff installed on the Cuyahoga County building or the Huntington Convention Center.
Bird Divert, Oguche confirmed, is planned to be installed this summer.
