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Chicagoans told to turn off lights after birds hit building, die

FILE - Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker participates in a debate with Republican gubernatorial challenger, state Sen. Darren Bailey, at the WGN9 studios, Oct. 18, 2022, in Chicago. Crisis pregnancy centers, which often pop up near abortion facilities to offer information about alternatives to the procedure, face penalties if they disseminate misleading or untruthful information after action by Pritzker on Thursday, July 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

(NewsNation) — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is cautioning residents to turn off their lights at night after nearly 1,000 migrating birds died Thursday when they flew into the windows of Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center.

The deaths led to the largest collection efforts the city’s Field Museum has documented in 40 years, the organization said on X, formerly Twitter.


“More than 600 million migrating birds are predicted to pass over our state just tonight,” Pritzker wrote on X. “Turn your lights off if you can and let’s help the birds on their way.”

Illuminated lights can be disorienting to birds, causing accidents, according to the Field Museum.

“When the birds don’t survive, their bodies are brought to the Museum, where they will be processed, cleaned by the museum’s flesh-eating beetle colony, and become part of our collection to inform future scientific research,” the museum wrote on X.