NEW YORK, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- The majority of birds that are injured or stunned hitting buildings don't recover, a new study has found, which could push estimates for the number of birds killed flying into buildings far above 1 billion a year in the United States.

Hitting buildings is a significant threat to wild birds. Estimates of U.S. mortality rates from building crashes are based only on the number of birds found dead or mortally injured, not those that die later of their injuries, The Washington Post reported, citing the study.

In the study, published in the journal PLOS One earlier this week, the researchers looked at birds that were taken to wildlife rehabilitation centers to assess their long-term survival rates.

The researchers, who studied cases from the northeastern United States between 2016 and 2021, examined the records of over 3,100 building crashes with 152 bird species and found that about 60 percent of the birds taken to rehabilitation centers died, either by succumbing to their injuries or euthanasia.

The most commonly found species in the study were mourning doves, American robins, northern cardinals, cooper's hawks and gray catbirds, and the most common form of injury was head trauma and concussion. The vast majority appeared otherwise healthy before the injuries suffered in the building crash, the researchers said.

Amid a growing recognition that birds are an important part of the ecosystem from controlling insects to helping disperse seeds, a number of U.S. cities and states have passed regulations requiring new buildings to be more "bird-friendly," according to study's authors. Enditem

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