Photo: Study skins from “Lights Out - Recovering Our Night Sky,” Robin Duska
Robin Duska
Sadly, many of us have come across a dead bird, whether near a window or out on a trail, often a result of its collision with a window or other object. NVBA’s Bird Safe NOVA partners are working to reduce the number of collisions that result in bird deaths.
Study skins from “Lights Out - Recovering Our Night Sky.” Photo: Robin Duska
When birds do die, can they be of use to scientists? “Absolutely,” says Museum Specialist Brian Schmidt of the Smithsonian’s Bird Division in the National Museum of Natural History. He frequently works with Lights Out D.C. and Lights Out Baltimore volunteers to ensure birds found dead can be relayed to the Smithsonian’s Bird Division and considered for inclusion in its collection of over 600,000 specimens. The Bird Division’s specimens are used by the Feather Identification Lab and over 300 researchers who visit every year to study migration, climate change, disease, parasite screening, seed dispersal and other bird-related topics. Lights Out volunteers end each spring and fall migration season by taking frozen birds and inventory lists to the Bird Division, where ornithologists like Brian prepare the birds as “study skins” or skeletons for the collection.
Readers can learn more about bird-window collisions at the Smithsonian’s current “Lights Out—Recovering Our Night Sky” exhibition, which has been extended to December 2026 (see also this NVBA article on the exhibition).
Lights Out D.C. and Lights Out Baltimore are able to accumulate the birds they find until the end of each migration season because they have permits from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. But you as an individual also may collect a dead bird for the scientists at the Bird Division under an allowance for opportunistic salvage, if you follow a few simple rules.
First, any dead bird you pick up must be donated or destroyed within seven calendar days.
Second the donated specimen should go to an entity like the Smithsonian’s Bird Division which has authorization to retain the specimens.
Third, if not donated, the dead bird must be destroyed by burial, incineration or landfill disposal.
Fourth, do not salvage dead birds from federal lands, where additional permitting requirements may apply, or other public lands or private property that is not your own without authorization.
Note that additional requirements apply to eagles under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Here’s a link to a USFWS fact sheet on salvage of migratory birds.
How should you safely save a dead bird for a museum? According to the CDC, the health risk to humans from bird flu is low; however, wearing nitrate gloves or using a disposable object to move the bird into a clear resealable plastic bag is a common-sense precaution. Include a piece of paper listing the date when and the location where the bird was found along with your contact information, then seal the bag, removing as much air from the bag as possible. Keep the bird in a freezer until it can be relayed to the permitted institution.
For questions about relaying dead birds to the Smithsonian’s Bird Division, contact Brian Schmidt at schmidtb@si.edu.
Robin Duska is a volunteer collections management assistant with Bird Division at the National Museum of Natural History