Volunteers put Feather Friendly decals on the Quantum-Nano Centre to protect birds

Twenty volunteers from the Society for Environmental Restoration at Waterloo (SER-UW), Bird Friendly Kitchener and Bird Friendly Waterloo began work in May 2026 on putting Feather Friendly decals on the northeast side of the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre (QNC), on its first and second floors. The building was chosen because it has been noted as having the highest bird fatality on campus.

Professor Jennifer Clary-Lemon leads the project, which the Sustainability Action Fund paid for. She credits Plant Operations staff for handling scheduling, labour and cleaning, which made for an easy two days of installation. The decals come from a Mississauga company and are known to reduce bird-window collisions by 95%.

An estimated 16 to 42 million birds die in window collisions in Canada each year, often because they mistake reflections of vegetation for real objects. Over the next three years SER-UW will keep monitoring the building for collision fatalities to measure results. The university suggests covering windows with decals, turning off lights in empty rooms and keeping houseplants away from windows.