“Like many of our North American bird species, they’re under pressure . . . They’re in severe decline . . . Originally, they nested in hollow trees . . . and then we cut the forests down . . . and they adapted to nesting in chimneys . . . and now we’re capping them . . . and modern construction doesn’t have chimneys . . . So they’re habitat is going away . . . So every single spot is critical for them . . . especially migratory spots . . . for populations that still have nesting sites up in the north in the mature forests . . . I don’t know a lot about the Masonic Temple chimney . . . but during migratory seasons, spring and fall these birds gather in huge numbers . . . apparently this chimney houses 2000 birds at a time . . . and it’s critical that they have these roosting sites during migration . . . So these places are going away very quickly . . . So every one that we can replace or maintain is critical for their continued existence . . . These birds migrate from North America, Canada, all the way down to the Brazilian rain forest for the winter . . . and they come back . . . and they are very site-specific . . . so if they lose a tower, they have no place to go . . . and I would gather a good percentage would perish if they don’t have the same place to go back to . . . This is a worthy cause.”
