Over 20 titmice died last Wednesday in front of Terminal 1 of the airport Photo: private
By Pia Fredebeul
Numerous blue and great tits died miserably at Berlin airport last week. Cause of death: the glass facade of the BER.
The injured birds were found by an airport employee. The entire front of Terminal 1 was littered with titmice, almost all of them dead. Sven Steudte (32) is the driver of the “animal taxi” for wildlife rescue. “The birds confuse the glass panels with the sky,” he says. “The necessary foils are missing almost everywhere.”
Many animals also die in the glassed-in spaces at the airport. Animal rights activist Sven Steudte (32) brought two of the 25 titmice to the rescue site, only one survived Photo: Olaf Selchow
According to estimates by the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation, several hundred to thousands of birds die on the windows of the BER every year.
“The phenomenon that birds do not always recognize buildings is not something unique to Berlin-Brandenburg Airport,” says an airport spokesman to the BZ. Certain glass surfaces have already been equipped with films, and further measures are also planned.
Films on glass facades are extremely important for birds. They are missing almost everywhere at BER Photo: Olaf Selchow
Berlin’s state animal protection officer Dr. Kathrin Herrmann disagrees: “Stunned citizens sometimes discover up to 30 dead birds in a single day. In view of such figures, it has long been clear that the operator is violating nature conservation law!