Drawn to the light<\/h2>\n
Artificial light at night (ALAN), either on or off coast, is known to impact the behavior of baby sea turtles, insects, various forms of marine life, nocturnal pollinators, and birds, including seabirds. As energy-efficient LEDs become widespread and coasts become ever brighter, ALAN can disrupt circadian rhythms, change nighttime behaviors of animals and birds (not to mention humans) and disturb their hormonal balance. While scientists understand how ALAN affects other seabirds like petrels and shearwaters, little is known about its impact on smaller seabirds like puffins.<\/p>\n
In the first experiment as part of their study, Brown and colleagues shone a bright LED light on two beaches facing the puffin colony in Witless Bay for a couple of hours on alternate days for 11 nights. On days when the beach was illuminated, they found tens of pufflings near the beach. However, when the beach was dark, they found nearly none. This showed that the seabirds are markedly attracted to light.<\/p>\n
To examine their preference further, the researchers placed stranded puffins, retrieved by the Puffin Patrol volunteers, in what\u2019s known as a Y maze.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an experiment that\u2019s meant to test preference of movement of these birds,\u201d Brown says, describing the experimental setup that consists of a Y-shaped tunnel. They placed each bird at the bottom of the Y. One of the arms at the top had a light source, and the other was dark, with the puffling free to choose which one to move toward.<\/p>\n
\u201cPuffins are generally pretty curious, gregarious, active animals, so it wasn\u2019t too difficult to get them to move through the Y-maze,\u201d Brown says about their experience. As it turned out, all the puffins put through the maze chose light over darkness, further confirming their preference for light.<\/p>\n
The researchers then tested whether the birds preferred a particular light source, such as high-pressure sodium lights or LED lights, or color. They again used the Y-maze with various combinations of light sources and colors to test the pufflings\u2019 preferences. The birds didn\u2019t seem to care about the spectrum of light, with no marked preference between warm white, blue, orange and cool white light, nor did they prefer a light source.<\/p>\n Interestingly, the pufflings seemed to be more mobile \u2014 pacing around the experimental area \u2014 in darkness and under high-pressure sodium light than under LED lights. The researchers say this behavior would make it easy for the birds to be spotted under darkness and the dim sodium lights.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really good science,\u201d says Jones, who wasn\u2019t involved in the study. \u201cScience works through an objective process, facts and controlled experiments and very careful conclusions, drawing from that, and this is what they\u2019ve done here.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked why only a fraction of pufflings get stranded on the coast of Newfoundland, while most seem to be just fine, study co-author Sabina Wilhelm, a seabird biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Services, says that while the birds disperse at random when they make their way to the ocean, those that get lost and move closer to land are further attracted to the light.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not long-range attraction,\u201d Wilhelm says.<\/p>\n Since the pufflings\u2019 vision isn\u2019t adapted to see well at night, Wilhelm posits they get attracted to light because it makes them feel safe.<\/p>\n \u201cOn a night where there\u2019s a fog, or there\u2019s no moon, and it\u2019s just pitch dark \u2026 you see something [bright], naturally you\u2019ll go in that direction because it\u2019s something versus nothing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The IUCN Red List categorizes Atlantic puffins, the only puffins native to the Atlantic Ocean, as vulnerable. As the climate crisis warms the oceans, puffins are seeing their prey driven further north. In addition, marine pollution is impacting their habitat. This has led to decreasing numbers in the eastern Atlantic. In the western Atlantic, however, their numbers seem to be healthy, for now.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always feel like we are on the tipping edge,\u201d says Wilhelm, who studies seabird populations in Atlantic Canada, as the threat of avian flu currently looms large and starvation killed many chicks in 2023.<\/p>\n The study\u2019s findings also have implications for puffin conservation as they show that artificial light could increase strandings, and the only way to reduce them is to turn the lights off on the coasts during the fledgling season.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most affected and the most important areas to avoid increasing light pollution would be areas immediately adjacent to the colonies, where the birds are fledging and where they\u2019re most likely to end up by chance,\u201d Brown says.<\/p>\n On the \u201cbright\u201d side, stranded pufflings\u2019 attraction to light could also help focus rescue efforts on brightly lit hotspots where they\u2019re more likely to be found in large numbers.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of looking for birds across this huge coastline, you can actually try to get the majority in one area,\u201d Wilhelm says, talking about how the study\u2019s findings could inform efforts like the Puffin Patrol. \u201cIt really becomes more efficient to save them.\u201d<\/p>\n Reducing artificial light along Newfoundland\u2019s coast also benefits another vulnerable nocturnal seabird: Leach\u2019s storm petrel (Hydrobates leucorhous), whose numbers have halved in the last four decades. Artificial light, on the coast and off the coast on oil rigs, has led to many birds being drawn into towns, run over by cars, or banging into structures and injuring themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce a seabird is injured, there\u2019s no emergency room that a seabird can check into,\u201d Jones says, adding that Leach\u2019s storm petrels are dying by the thousands and that this is a critical concern.<\/p>\n \u201cA global awareness of the problem of artificial light \u2026 is urgent,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s time for drastic action to reduce light offshore and on our shorelines to save the storm petrel, and certainly that\u2019s going to save a few puffin fledglings as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilhelm, S. I., Dooley, S. M., Corbett, E. P., Fitzsimmons, M. G., Ryan, P. C., & Robertson, G. J. (2021). Effects of land-based light pollution on two species of burrow-nesting seabirds in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Avian Conservation and Ecology, 16(1). doi:10.5751\/ace-01809-160112<\/p>\n Brown, T. M., Wilhelm, S. I., Slepkov, A. D., Baker, K., Mastromonaco, G. F., & Burness, G. (2024). Navigating the night: Effects of artificial light on the behaviour of Atlantic puffin fledglings. Animal Behaviour, 218, 135-148. doi:10.1016\/j.anbehav.2024.09.008<\/p>\nReduce artificial light to save seabirds<\/h2>\n
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