Understanding and Advancing Improvements to Nighttime Lighting for the Benefit of Birds, Other Wildlife, and People

Student Researcher

Alexandra Otto, Major Biology

Faculty Mentor

Dr. John Swaddle

Project Description

Working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Migratory Bird Program, W&M students are taking a multidisciplinary and multispecies justice approach to understand the impacts and propose solutions to mitigate the negative impacts of offshore lighting on birds.

Recent research found that nearly three billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970 and many species populations are still in decline. One of the underlying drivers of bird declines is artificial lighting at night, especially offshore lighting on maritime routes that intersect with bird migration patterns in marine ecosystems. Lighting causes birds to avoid well-lit habitats essential for their survival, disrupts their circadian rhythms, alters their metabolism, alters predator-prey relationships, and disorients birds putting them at high risk for collision with buildings and infrastructure.

People are also negatively affected by poor lighting which can increase safety risks and alter human circadian rhythms, which has been linked to increased rates of some cancers.

While low-cost lighting mitigation strategies have proven successful on land, little attention has been given to understanding and mitigating the impacts of offshore lighting on bird populations.

Utilizing a multidisciplinary and multispecies justice approach to understanding and mitigating the impact of nighttime lighting on birds, W&M student Alli Otto explored the spatiotemporal relationship between bird migration routes and maritime routes in 2024 to better understand the challenge and to identify priority areas for mitigation.

In 2025 a W&M student advance this project to the next phase, which may include developing an outreach strategy to cruise line and oil and gas industries that incorporates building awareness of the negative aspects of lighting, sharing recommendations for solutions, or collecting information about offshore interactions with birds and willingness of industry contacts to consider implementing solutions.

Project ID - Format

24-006-24 - CRP Year

24-006-25 - CRP Year