this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
100 points (100.0% liked)

News

23296 readers
5155 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
dezmd@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
Blackbeard@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
100
Texas' skyscrapers are going dark to keep billions of birds safe (www.bbc.com)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

About two billion birds fly through Texas in the spring – and lit-up buildings pose a deadly risk. Turning out the lights at night could save countless fatal collisions.

It was a foggy Thursday morning when animal services supervisor Josh Henderson received news of a mass mortality. On May 4, 2017, 395 migratory birds died after smashing into one office tower in Galveston, Texas. Henderson rushed to the scene to witness the gruesome spectrum of feathers from yellow and orange to blue and grey of the lifeless small-featured bodies.

"It was awe-inspiring and tragic," says Henderson, who is now the executive director of the Humane Society in Galveston.

…

In 2020, Cornell, Houston Audubon and a range of other organisations joined forces to start the "Lights Out, Texas!" campaign, which encourages building owners, developers and businesses to switch off non-essential lighting from 11pm to 6am each night during spring and autumn migration. Timed for around March-June (spring migration) and August-November (autumn migration), the campaign aims to help create a safe passage for nocturnally migrating birds. Since then, Lights Out Texas has taken hold in every major city in Texas. The state is considered an especially important place for the campaign given its position as a mass bird migration hotspot.

…

Around 24 communities in Texas have pledged to follow the Lights Out recommendations.

Early data collection suggests that Lights Out is effective, says Chloe Saucedo Crumley, the public affairs and engagement manager at Audubon Texas. After tracking the bird crashes at Chicago's towering McCormick Place over 20 years, researchers found a 60% decrease in bird mortality when lights are turned off.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] betz24@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I was curious why this is effective.

The influence of artificial light in urban spaces is a well-known phenomenon among birds, but is still not fully understood. Birds tend to migrate by night, and use the stars to navigate. By day, they use the position of the Sun to orient themselves. During nocturnal migration, they are often seen gathering around or crashing into lit-up windows and structures, or gathering around beams of projected life. The artificial glow of cities also appears to attract them for stopovers. One explanation is that they may generally fly towards light sources, but also, that the artificial light confuses, traps and disorients them.

I wonder if it's a deer in the headlights effect or more like moths?

[–] lost_faith@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago

Prolly more like moths, except moths try to keep the light on their backs as opposed to their forward position.