Winter 2022 team: Sam Eberhard, Liana Rostamian, Kyle Kusa, Gizelle Hurtado, Dmitrius Rodriguez, Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela
Between 1996 and 2018, 18 birds were brought to the Norris Center after dying as a result of window collision. Birds of all species are affected by these collisions, which are very common on campus.
The Bird-Window Collisions internship is a joint effort between UC Santa Cruz and Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela to mitigate the amount of bird-window collisions on campus. Our goal is to apply dotted film to the buildings at UCSC which are responsible for the most collisions. Interns will collect data to choose these buildings by conducting surveys of 10 buildings every 3 days for evidence of collisions, and by conducting scavenger experiments to see what impact scavengers have on bird mortality rates when a collision is not fatal.