Making a Little Flap

 

God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets His tender view;
If God so loves the little birds,
I know He loves me, too.
Refrain

He loves me, too, He loves me, too,
I know He loves me, too;
Because He loves the little things,
I know He loves me, too.

 

You might think that a feature article in the New York Times this past weekend about Toronto would be a feather in Canada's cap but not so. The article was about the deaths of anywhere between a million and nine million -- yes, nine million -- birds each year because of collisions with the office and condo towers of the downtown. Toronto is unique in North America in the number of glass-clad buildings, which leads to a much higher number of these fatal collisions. They say there is no such thing as bad publicity but I'm not thrilled that Toronto is Murder City when it comes to birds. Often we read about the problem of outdoor cats when it comes to killing birds. Apparently we humans are much more destructive -- what's new?

Volunteers for FLAP --Fatal Light Awareness Program -- do sweeps around buildings to both count and identify birds and one found 500 in one morning. http://www.flap.org/ The retrievers of dead birds are also rescuers of the injured, which are also abundant.

The weird thing is the article gives the death count from a pick-up downtown on October 8th of this year, my birthday. The same day my daughter Jocelyn gave me a little booklet from FLAP with beautiful illustrations of birds -- all dead. I hasten to add that it was not her only gift to me, but she know how important these issues are for me.

Organizations such as FLAP encourage architects to consider how these urban architectural giants affect the web of creation. And they ask building owners and their tenants to simply dim or shut off lights at night to reduce the carnage. It's not a lot to ask, really.
But of course there are so many "not a lot to ask's" for humans in wealthy countries to consider, but we are slow to respond. Perhaps we just don't trust that our actions will make a difference. As a Christian I keep telling myself that my actions and those of the people I join with in the Christian community do make a difference. We can all make our little flaps and hope to get airborne.

Did you know about the problem in Toronto or the work of FLAP? Can we make a difference?