The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

economist suntyibuhe environment tuesday march 14 2000 light lures birds t bymikeadler staff writer at 4 or 5 am when you are asleep they are walking between the office towers in downtown toronto looking for birds underneath the rows of shining windows or beside the bright floodlights they find them birds lying dead injured or stunned birds confused sometimes they dont find even one sometimes they find 10 or 50 or more lured by lights into the glass it is always during the songbird migrations of fall and spring that the tall buildings claim the most there might be 300 birds in one morning said michael mesure the thornhill resident who cofounded the fatal light awareness program or flap thef go in waves the volunteers have to find the birds before predators crows gulls racoons rats and cats arrive dead birds are collected and identified the injured ones are nursed until they can be released since 1997 flap has found 126 different bird species in downtown toronto some days you can have more dead than alive and you could just cry said maureen flynn of richmond hill a volunteer birds also are striking reflective office buildings in the daytime and sailing into livingroom windows and increasingly the guidewires for telecommunications towers toronto according to a video produced by a local company three years ago is one of the major cities on one of the biggest bird migration corridors on the planet fatal light sold to a japanese television network but never shown in canada recounts how in 1993 mesure formed flap said to be the worlds first and only group dedicat ed to stopping bird collisions flap convinced owners of consillium place an office tower in scarborough to experiment with window film after the group collect ed 800 birds there last year the buildings use of mirrored glass is common and lowers cooling and heating costs but i call it an archi tectural copout mesure said birds meanwhile view the reflec- tions as a place they can go into mesure uses window film the same material used on public bus advertisements on his own win dows and he said it works flap wants office towers to turn off unnecessary lights mesure argued telecommunications towers could be lower to the ground by using satellites to relay their signals flynn a junior kindergarten teacher at st david catholic school in maple said the school board headquarters in aurora reduced its night lighting at flaps request volunteers put injured birds they photoallan cairns fatal light awareness program president michael mesure tends to a wood thrush which collided with a highrise in downtown toronto find in paper bags and either treat them at home or hand them over to the toronto wildlife centre or toronto humane society experienced flap members give birds homeopathic medicine for injuries usually head trauma flynn releases the birds who had been heading north at the kortright centre for conservation in kleinburg i want to get them past the big buildings of vaughan for more information about flap visit their website at wwwflaporg foundation frantic to track endangered peregrine falcons by mike adler staff writer richmond hills resident endangered species is an accomplished killer and mark nash has the evidence in front of him i have a starlings wing i have a pigeons wingt have a blackbird wing i have a blue jay head nash said reviewing a package of bird remains on his desk the gnawedon items were collected from the roof of richmond hills municipal office tower the first home a juvenile peregrine falcon called rouge killer of the hapless birds may remember rouge along with three other peregrines was raised there in a hack box until his 45th day of life once released rouge stuck around the centre of town not a bad place for a peregrine according to nash although he has also gone hunting oh the leslie street spit hes still chasing people off the richmond hill roof and terrorizing the neighbourhood nash said but more amazing to nash cofounder of the canadian peregrine foundation is where rouges hackmates have gone since the four birds were released june 28 one sir richmond died in july after an oper ation to repair a broken wing but the others were tracked by satellite through a backpack antenna harnessed to each bird rouges antenna pack was taken off in december when his surviving hackmates according to the foundations project trackem had already reached the tropics nate whose transmitter is still talking made it to northern colombia echo reached the panama canal before his transmitter quit and incredibly there have been two sightings by birdwatchers this month one on the qew in burlington the other in stoney creek of a peregrine with an antenna on its back nash is now frantic to confirm the identity of the bird or birds before the antenna harness does what it was designed to do within another couple of months falls off possibilities include echo lincoln another juvenile with a dead transmitter released by the foundation in guelph and an adult peregrine harnessed but unaccounted for after its release in alberta i need a leg band number nash said he already expects the tracking experiment which the selfemployed toronto man said has had its critics will be valuable to study the pere grine the worlds fastest bird nobody on this globe has ever put a trans mitter on the back of a firstyear juvenile bird although 550 peregrines bred in captivity have been released in ontario last year only 23 breeding pairs were known in the province the peregrine in the wild has a high mortality rate and its recovery from the brink of extinction is slow human intervention in the form of the pesti cide ddt nearly wiped out the bird nash hopes care by human volunteers and hack box releases can help more of the species survive if you see a peregrine the foundation asks you to report the time location and the birds band number if possible by calling 416 481- 1233 the richmond hill peregrine website is wwwperegrinefqundationcatopsrhtophtml regional news digest whats happening sing spirit sing sunday march 26 at 3 pm thornhill united church 25 elgin st thornhill the music makers of cobourg join the cantabile chorale of york region for a concert which also features liturgical dancer vivian rabe photo for information and tickets call 7318318 or 7649692 doctor faces fraud charge a thornhill man is one of 12 doctors charged with fraud and conspiracy after the ontario health insurance plan was bilked of more than 2 million dr eric cheung 32 was charged march 1 after a two- year ontario provincial police probe of mississaugas advanced walkin clinic on the queensway investigators allege between jan 1 and dec 31 1997 the doc tors billed for services that were not rendered billed for services that were not medically neces sary and billed for unnecessary medical referrals the clinic is owned and operated by dr carlo meola 43 of mississauga and he is among those charged the doctors face one count each of fraud over 5000 and conspiracy to com mitfraud over 5000 bogus bomb disabled yorks emergency response unit officers were forced to dis able what appeared to be a bomb found behind an indus- trial plaza in vaughan yesterday york regional police eru dis covered cylindershaped objects with wire sticking out of them wrapped inside a tancoloured bag a highpowered airwater cannon was used partially destroying it the remainder has been sent to the centre for forensic sciences in toronto for analysis lease rates from as low as 19 0 financing from as low as 29 bill houston ford ltd 6404541 wwwbillhoustonfordcom ju 11769 highway 48 stouffville see dealer for details roomwgtcw 1 iroimmro 9 muobmmhb0e 3 our customers are the focus of everything we do