UNDERSTANDING AND PREVENTING BIRD-WINDOW COLLISION WITH BUILDINGS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Bird-window collision has been identified as the number one cause of death for avian in the West, with one billion deaths recorded annually just within the United States. Solutions have been created and trialled with but the results have differed under different conditions. After educating people about this issue, policies have been implemented to protect this wildlife and building construction professionals are now looking into bird-friendly construction methods and materials. In Singapore, there has not been any prior studies made regarding the issue of bird-window collision, much less any implementation of such policies. This dissertation thus seeks to initiate the understanding of bird-window collision in Singapore by firstly, understanding birds’ biological behaviour; secondly, understanding Singapore’s trend of building construction and a specific material that has been identified to be the cause of this issue – glass; and lastly, understanding the public’s level of awareness to this issue. Through research design and methodologies, it has been revealed that bird-window collisions do occur in Singapore; people do witness birds’ death but no reports about them were made as there were no requirement to and anti-bird-window collision technology will most likely not be adopted unless the cost of implementation is low. After understanding these behaviours, a strategy can be planned in rolling out Scott’s institutional framework on three different levels – Regulatory, Normatively, Cultural-Cognitively. The limitations of this study is that there are not many experts in this area in Singapore and developer firms do not have the data on such occurrences. No contractors were willing to get involved during the course of this research study. Nevertheless, with the expert opinions from a NUS researcher, a staff from a listed developer firm and 100 kind surveyees, important information is recorded. This information provides this study a better representation of the situation of bird-window collision in Singapore and also act as a stepping stone for future research to come.