Opinion newsletter for Nov. 13: U.S. Bank Stadium's bird problem by the numbers

Scott Gillespie
Editorial Editor and Vice President

Good morning,

The Editorial Board will provide its take on the impeachment hearings over the weekend, along with the best related commentary and letters from readers.

This morning, as the hearings kick off in Washington, Star Tribune Opinion readers are reacting to our lead commentary on bird mortality at U.S. Bank Stadium.

The authors of the piece are Steve Greenfield, president of Friends of Roberts Bird Sanctuary; Wendy Haan, co-founder of Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds; and Jerry Bahls, past president and current board member of Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis.

Reacting to the release of a study on bird deaths commissioned by the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA) and the Minnesota Vikings, the writers say the research cost about one-third of the $1 million that could have funded bird-safe glass at the $1 billion stadium.

"Now that study is out and shows a significant number of migrating birds are killed by the stadium glass every year, just as the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis and other groups predicted and found in their own study released in 2017," the commentary laments.

"The stadium's highly reflective glass in the Mississippi Flyway, a major migration corridor used by millions of birds twice a year, virtually guaranteed that the stadium would rank among the top bird-killing buildings in the city, as the new study confirms."

It's not clear what, if anything, the MSFA and the Vikings will do to address stadium-related bird deaths, but they did issue a joint statement saying they'd continue to evaluate mitigation strategies.

You can expect Greenfield, Haan, Bahls and others to keep pushing until they take action.