BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – (WIVT/WBGH) Binghamton University has installed designs on a glass walkway to reduce the amount of birds getting injured or dying.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that building-glass collisions cause 988 million bird deaths each year. BU recognized that a specific glass walkway by the greenhouse was consistently injuring birds, so the university teamed up with SpeedPro Central New York to produce and install graphic vinyl to deter the birds from flying into the glass.

A professor of biology, Anne Clark says that something as little as a dark colored dot can do the trick.

“Many of them see into the UV, and so, they’re very very responsive to reflections, and one of the ways that you can warn them is not only to have an object that is fixed in space on the glass, but something that actually reflects into the UV,” said Clark.

BU faculty were frequently reporting incidents involving sparrows, warblers and screech owls. Clark says that this is just the first step, as there are a lot of windows and glass around BU’s campus.