Ponte Genova: Lipu, is "bird friendly"

The new Genoa bridge inaugurated on Monday 3 is "bird friendly". Lipu-BirdLife Italia announces it, explaining that in the design phase of the new large work it has succeeded, "thanks to the availability of the architect Renzo Piano, to have some markings inserted on the transparent barriers with the aim of preventing the serious problem of the impact that birds can have against the windows. The latter - added the League for the protection of birds - are not seen by birds which, thinking of crossing them, instead impact you with often fatal effects ".

Lipu recalls that according to data from numerous Italian studies, the annual number of birds that die on every single kilometer of transparent barriers can reach 800. Worldwide, the impact against transparent panels, but also windows, power lines and wind turbines is one of the greatest threats to the survival of birds, and is constantly increasing due to urban expansion and the growing use of glass in construction.

"The Polcevera valley where the new bridge stands is an important migration route for wild birds - underlines the president of Lipu Aldo Verner - Thanks to this intervention we therefore think we can save a large number of specimens belonging also to rare and threatened. "

The hope is that "this method of mitigation can be adopted in all construction and infrastructure works, thus making an important contribution to the conservation of wild birds".

On the panels of the Genoa viaduct, explains the animal rights association, black horizontal lines of two millimeters, three centimeters apart, have been inserted in silk-screen printing: a solution similar to that suggested by the manual "Building with glass and light respecting birds ", published by the Swiss Ornithological Station, a reference text to which Lipu also contributed.