SPRING ALIVE REACHED OVER 5 MILLION PEOPLE

Spring Alive summed up results of 2019 season: this year turned out to be most massive in Europe and Central Asia! Spring Alive press release notes that thanks to the active participation of Uzbekistan Society for the Protection of Birds in this programme, events on 'Birds collision with windows and glass' theme reached over 5 million people!

Colliding with glass is a big danger for birds. This year, Spring Alive inspired young people across Europe and Central Asia to take action to make their windows bird-safe, transforming schools, homes and reaching millions through prime time TV.

It's a big problem with a simple solution. All across the world, billions of birds are colliding with glass, often fatally. But it doesn't have to be that way. With measures as easy as putting stickers on windows and turning our lights off at night, we can save lives of countless birds.

If we want to spread the word about issues like this, the best place to start is with our children. Children are the ones who will carry our love and respect for nature into the next generation, and today's youth are becoming more and more environmentally aware. It's clear that the youth of today care passionately about the nature they share their planet with.

This year, children across Europe and Central Asia responded with resounding support to this year's Spring Alive call to action: 'how can I make my windows bird-safe?'. In Poland, the Secondary School of Arts leads by example. With the help of "Glass Traps Foundation" and Polish Partner OTOP, graphic design pupils used their skills to pinpoint bird collision hotspots around their school and design the most effective warning stickers, transforming their campus from glass-fronted danger zone to bird-safe beacon.

Uzbekistan Society for the Protection of Birds took a different approach, broadcasting the issue on prime time national TV. 35-minute documentary, entitled 'Ornithologist', stressed the dangers faced by migratory birds in cities - especially the Common Swift, Uzbekistan's earliest and most numerous migrant, which is particularly susceptible to window collisions. Spring Alive coordinator in Uzbekistan hosted the programme and demonstrated how to create cheap and durable window stickers. The show spread our message to a staggering 5 million people.

UzSPB also teamed up with veterinary clinics and Tashkent Zoo to run a window collision hotline where citizens could report injured birds and get them treated. Thanks to the hotline, 21 Common Swifts, one Great Crested Grebe and one Common Rosefinch were rehabilitated and released into their natural habitat, along with ten healthy fledglings that had been found outside of their nests.

A total of 1,600 people in Uzbekistan attended Spring Alive events this spring and summer, including over 520 students. On Spring Alive programme website, participants from Uzbekistan registered 353 observations, which allowed our country to take 9^th place in the list of 41 participating countries!