New Street Lights to Help Save Baby Turtles – via Herp Digest

Cayman News Service 2/26/19

CUC staff install turtle-friendly lights

Forty special street lights have been purchased by the Department of Environment using cash from the Environmental Protection Fund to help prevent baby turtles hatching on local beaches from going the wrong way. The DoE said the new lights will be installed along roads adjacent to important turtle nesting beaches and where the most disorientation has happened in the past. They will all be fitted before this year’s nesting season in a significant step towards making public roads “turtle-friendly”.

“Roadway and residential lighting that shines onto the beach discourages female turtles from nesting and is a critical threat to hatchling sea turtles,” said DoE Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie.

“When they emerge from their nests at night, hatchlings find the ocean by heading toward the brightest light they can see. On an undeveloped beach, this is the moon and stars reflecting off the ocean’s surface. However, artificial lights can be much brighter and lead the baby turtles toward land, where they face mortal danger from exhaustion, dehydration, predators and vehicles.”

The installation is taking place in partnership with the National Roads Authority (NRA) and the power provider, Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC). One test light has already been installed in West Bay and similar turtle-friendly lights have been used successfully in other jurisdictions to reduce sea turtle hatchling mortality, while safely illuminating both roadways and beachfront properties.

The streetlights are certified by the US Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and use an amber wavelength that is less likely to attract hatchling turtles away from the sea.

CUC Manager of Environment, Health and Safety Joni Kirkconnell said the firm was pleased to facilitate the project. “The installation of these specially designed light fixtures offers a balance between environmental protection and road safety. We think Cayman’s community will appreciate these lights as much as we do,” she said.

NRA Acting Managing Director Edward Howard was also pleased to be involved.  “Replacement of the lights specified in the trial will lead to an immediate increase in sea turtle hatchling survival and will pave the way for turtle friendly roadway lighting to be rolled out on a broader scale in the future,” he said.

Dwayne Seymour, the minister with responsibility for the environment, said he was grateful to all those involved, as he pointed to similar projects happening in Florida.

Street lights lure moths away from gardens, say scientists

Moths’ role as pollinators is disrupted in brightly lit urban areas, finds research

Tim Radford

Thursday 2 June 201600.01 BST Last modified on Thursday 2 June 201611.23 BST

Street lights don’t just lure moths, they may be helping to impoverish suburban gardens by causing them to fly too high to pollinate flowers, researchers at Newcastle University report.

It could be at the cost of honeysuckle, ivy, the roadside wildflower white campion, and even buddleia, say the authors of a new study in the journal Global Change Biology.

The scientists have been looking not at the effect of change on either plants or on pollinators but on the interactions in an increasingly urban world.

“We all know that moths are attracted to light,” said Callum Macgregor, a PhD student at the university’s centre for ecology and hydrology and one of the authors.

 Moths should be loved, not loathed. Only a couple are after your clothes

 “Where there are street lights, our research indicates that moths are being attracted upwards, away from the fields and hedgerows. This is likely to cause disruption of night-time pollination by moths, which could be serious for the flowers that rely on moths for pollination, and of course there could be negative effects on the moths themselves.”

Moth and butterfly populations are in long-term decline in both the UK and Europe, and artificial lighting could be one potential cause, they say. The researchers captured and counted moths – including hawkmoths – in lit and unlit farmland in Oxfordshire. Where there were street lights, moth abundance at ground level was halved, but doubled at lamp-post height.

Read on … 

Bats are harmed rather than helped by street lights

New research at the University of Exeter and Bat Conservation Ireland has given the lie to the popular belief that streetlights are attractive to our common bat species because of the insect life they attract.

The study found that in fact bat activity was lower in street-lit areas than in dark locations with similar habitat. And, in fact, the scientists have concluded bright lights are having a detrimental effect on bats.

Despite frequently being depicted as blind, bats have good eyesight that is adapted for low light conditions. 

Dr Fiona Mathews from the University of Exeter says: “When we walk out of a lit house into the dark, it takes a while for our eyes to adapt to the darkness. 

“The same is true in bats – they are dazzled by bright light and it takes time for their eyes to re-adjust. This could affect their ability to navigate. 

Continued ...