We rarely stop to think that the night is necessary and good for life. Therefore, we do not realise that protecting the night sky is a valuable step to conserving bio-diversity. Most people think that, as we sleep at night, the rest of the species do the same, with a few exceptions, so it is of no concern if we send out a little light into the night time environment. A crass error. Naturalists know (and it would help if they said so more often) that the biological activity of our fauna is more intense at night than during the day and that this fauna needs the night for their normal activities.
-- The Importance of Protecting the Night Sky
Pere Horts
Deputy Chairman of Cel Fosc. Catalonia. Spain

Light Pollution Harms the Environment

The effects of light pollution on animals in the environment is numerous and is becoming more known. Unfortunately, is is far, far easier to setup a badly installed light outside than it is to understand the negative effects it causes down-light from it. U.S. roadways contribute a huge amount of waste light. All of that bad lighting could be redone by replacing the up-pointing 300W halogen bulbs with more efficient LED lights and by pointing the LEDs down, thus cost far less for the taxpayers with out causing a single change in the quality of information delivered to the traveler or to compromise their safety. Bad lighting does not stop just at the roads. Tiffany Saleh wrote a good article on the "Effects of Artificial Lighting on Wildlife" in the WildlandsCPR.org web site.

This page will cover some of the impacts that light pollution has on species which have lived on this planet far longer than us "john-come-lately" humans. In the span of a mere one hundred years, our creation of the never-occurring night is having some real effects on the animals that were here before us. One reason is that the same melatonin suppression problems we have with lights at night, creates the same problems in animals. Melatonin, the chronobiotic hormonal regulator of neoplastic cell growth (or just the hormonal signal from our biological clock), is used for similar functions in mammals worldwide. It is one of the oldest hormones known that basically signals to genes whether it is light out or not, hence light pollution effects animals as well. A mere glance at the articles in the Light pollution vs. Human Health page easily confirms this fact as melatonin testing is done over and over on rat species. It is also effected in amphibians as mentioned below.

But melatonin is more than just some ancient hormone buried deep within us and the animals that is impacted. Night tells so many animals when to eat, when to sleep, when to hunt, when to migrate or even when to reproduce. Probably half of life on earth starts their daily living at sundown. Here is a brief, incomplete accounting of how light pollution harms those living outside our materialistic world. Please note that these papers are taking me longer to go through that the human health articles did. The different articles about light pollution's impact on human health had quite an overlap in the information making them easier and easier to read, while the impact on the different animals is unique each time, hence requiring new learning curve each time on my part.

Links to plant and animal sections and papers covered in them are:

• Mammals
• Effects of Artificial Night Lighting on Terrestrial Mammals.
• Birds
• Hundreds of dead birds found outside high school
• Reptiles
• Understanding, assessing, and resolving light-pollution problems on sea turtle nesting beaches.
• Behavior of Loggerhead Sea Turtles on an Urban Beach. I. Correlates of Nest Placement
• Behavior of Loggerhead Sea Turtles on an Urban Beach. II. Hatchling Orientation
• Amphibians
• Studying the Ecological Impacts of Light Pollution on Wildlife: Amphibians as Models
• Insects
• Essay: The tropical light within
• Artificial night lighting and insects: Attraction of insects to streetlamps in a rural setting in Germany.
• Effects on Artificial Night Lighting on Moths
• Plants
• Does Night Lighting Harm Trees?
• Links to Other Sites

The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.

-- Chief Luther Standing Bear

Links to Other Sites

California Connected TV did an article about the encroachment of light pollution onto one of the last really dark locations left in the U.S.

The SkyKeepers.org out in California has their own Ecological Light Pollution page covering additional articles and reports on the effects of lights at night and the environment.