Casualties of Toronto’s Urban Skies

 It is not hard to see how urbanization is having a negative impact on natural ecosystems.  But besides destroying natural habitats the building of large cities is also impacting how species travel.  This could be due to fragmentation where species are not effectively able to travel between different habitat patches on land, but it is also a problem for bird migration.  More and more birds are being killed by flying into large buildings and structures that are most common in large cities.  A report from the NY Times reports that in Toronto the deaths of birds due to collisions with buildings is a large problem.  It is estimated that 1-9 million birds die each year due to collisions with buildings.  Groups have even been formed like the Fatal Light Awareness Program to protect the birds against unnecessary deaths due to buildings.  This is a very real example of how the urbanization of land by humans is having a negative impact on the natural world.  It is important to note that in the story that one volunteer for the bird watch group stated that if it were humans that were colliding with the buildings a lot more measures would be taken for their protection.  So this goes into what are peoples thoughts on the importance of species and to what measures humans will go to protect them.                                  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/world/americas/casualties-of-torontos-urban-skies.html?_r=0