“Birds are so cool,” said Jeff Acopian, founder and CEO of Acopian BirdSavers. “They’re just living their lives, and it’s amazing to me.”
He was sitting side-by-side with his wife, Helen, on a wooden bench in the beaming sunshine along the edge of the Sapsucker Woods pond. Blue Jays and red squirrels zipped by on their way to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s bird feeders. A nearby mulberry tree swayed in a small breeze.
Acopian is co-owner of Acopian Power Supply, a family-owned business that sells power supplies throughout the 50 states. But the reason he was visiting the Cornell Lab was to talk about his other business, painstakingly hand-making corded curtains known as Acopian BirdSavers. Despite their minimalist design, BirdSavers are very effective at keeping birds from colliding with windows—a major cause of bird mortality that accounts for up to 1 billion bird deaths each year in the United States alone. (The Cornell Lab uses BirdSavers along the windows at its headquarters—custom built by Acopian himself.)
During our sit-down interview with the Acopians, we had the chance to learn about their love of the natural world and the story of Acopian BirdSavers. We explored the creation, expansion, and motivations behind the bird-friendly company that created an affordable, DIY solution to bird-window collisions. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What made you interested in nature and saving birds?
Jeff Acopian: It’s not just birds. Anything that’s alive is interesting to me, except for mosquitoes and ticks. But nature, it’s just endlessly fascinating and saving birds makes me feel good. I don’t think they should die for some dumb reasons, like people having glass windows that could easily be protected. Why not put some BirdSavers on there?
What was your first experience with bird-window collisions that made you aware of the problem?
JA: It was the early 80s, I can’t remember exactly when it was, but we [Acopian’s family] were feeding birds and they kept hitting the windows.
We first put up bird savers because we saw a bird we had never seen before—a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. It ran into the window, so we put it in a box, we kept it in the house for a little while, and finally we let it go. And then another time at my mom’s house, a woodcock ran into a different window. When I saw it, I didn’t even know what it was. I said, “What is this bird?” We’ve been there since 1963, and never seen woodcocks except that one that killed himself in the window. It’s cool to see these interesting birds, but not cool to see them dying.
So, my brother and I were kind of hippies back then. He was five years older than me and we had these hippie bead curtains. My dad took them from our rooms, took them apart and hung them on the windows. He just put them up and just happened to put them about four inches apart. And it worked. It stopped the birds from hitting the windows.
BirdSavers launched around 2010, so it sounds like it took a while before you brought them to market—how did that come about?
Helen Acopian: We’re Armenian and Armenia was the first country that became independent from the Soviet Union, and Jeff’s dad was always talking to us as to what we can do to help with the environment.
JA: Yeah, so we figured we’d write a book on the birds of Armenia and hopefully start an environmental movement like Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds did in this country. We wanted to make sure we used the right terminology, so we found an ornithologist at the Muhlenberg [College], Dan Klem.
That sounds like serendipity—the ornithologist you contacted about your Armenian field guide turned out to be a renowned expert on bird–window collisions.
JA: It took us six years to do the book and while doing it, I learned from Klem about this issue of birds hitting windows. I thought we were the only ones. He impressed upon me the fact that this isn’t just a problem in our house, it’s a problem all over the world. And over the six years, he put it in the front of my brain that this is a problem everywhere.
So in 2010, because I had this technique that worked [to stop window collisions], and Dan kept telling me nobody’s doing anything, I thought, “Well, I can do something. I’ll make a website to tell people about BirdSavers.”
It all started there and I learned a lot over the past 14 years.
Since making your first beaded bird savers in the 80s, how has its design changed over time?
JA: After some time hanging on the window, the beads and the things between the beads–I think it was bamboo–started falling apart, so the birds started hitting the windows again. My dad got some very thin bamboo poles and he hung them on the window, and that stopped the birds too. But I thought it looked terrible. They were about half an inch thick and impacted your vision more when you look out the window.
So, in the early 2000s, I started experimenting with using paracord. I thought, “Paracord looks nice and it hangs down straight.” So, I started experimenting with that and it worked. Paracord is a lot thinner and it still does the same job and it doesn’t impact your vision. Just about everybody gets used to it in a day or two. And, some people even like the fact that they’re hanging there. I’ve had many people say it has a calming effect on them.
With an efficient design and website established, how did you go about manufacturing BirdSavers?
JA:Well, I didn’t necessarily want to manufacture. I wanted to let people know that this is a solution that you can do and I knew that some people aren’t going to want to do it, you know? So I made it easy for ‘em. I’ll make it for you.
HA: He works all the time making the BirdSavers.
JA: Yeah, when I get an order, they go out in a day or two at the most. Sometimes I’ll be in there on a Sunday making BirdSavers and I’m done. Then when I go to ship them, another order will come in, so I’ll go and make that one too. People write back to me saying, “I can’t believe that I just ordered it and it’s already on its way here!” That’s like the first priority, to get those things out.
You make it a point to encourage people to make their own BirdSavers—if they can—rather than purchase them. Such an approach can cut into your sales, so why push for it?
JA: If somebody’s at home and they’re living on a budget, they might not want to spend money to buy BirdSavers. But if they see an easy way to make it and it’s not going to cost much, they could maybe do their whole house and save a lot of birds.
I mean, think about it. If everybody who cared about birds now wanted to do something to keep them from flying into the windows, if everybody went out and made their own BirdSavers, the problem would be solved in a week.
We have almost 10,000 BirdSavers out there that I made. [So] I didn’t look at it like we want to make money for this product. I look at it as, I want to save birds.
Do you consider yourself a driving force for conservation?
JA: Honestly, I don’t know. That’s just not my forte being the driving force. Maybe I’m too blunt or don’t use enough tact sometimes. But, I’m persistent. I don’t give up. I keep going. And when I see things that are wrong, I try to fix them. There’s no tact involved. It’s just me working to save birds.
