By Seher Talukdar
While light pollution is a problem exclusive to urban areas, the effects of it can be felt in ecosystems all around. To begin, what is light pollution? There are generally 3 forms of this: glare, light trespass, and sky-glow. The sky-glow is what illuminates the atmosphere around huge cities, making it seem like there is a dome of light radiating off of the landscape. It is this third type of pollution that has the worst impact on animal life, as it upsets their ecosystem and interferes with their way of living.
Many animals rely on light as a way of navigation, even humans use light and dark to coordinate our circadian rhythms and go to sleep. However, with more and more places producing glaring lights all night long, a lot of animal species become incredibly disoriented and face huge impacts. One example is sea turtles, which travel to beaches to nest and then their hatchlings travel back into the ocean. But, brightly lit shores discourage them from coming back to their nesting grounds, taking a toll on their population numbers. Not only that, the new baby turtles depend on lighting in order to differentiate the land and the water. Now that the dark land mass is much brighter than the ocean, hatchlings have been found to move away from the sea and travel inland, putting them at greater risks in terms of survival.
Sea life isn’t the only affected aspect of the environment. Plenty of migratory bird species have been thrown off their travel routes when flying over well-lit areas, making it harder for them to return to their nesting grounds or fly south for the colder seasons. Even human lives have been impacted, as 3 out of 4 people now live in cities, where the night sky is outshined by street lights and skyscrapers. The ability to look up at the Milky Way is unfathomable to most.
While West Windsor is not a city like New York, it is still important to appreciate and understand what effects we have on the ecosystem and environment, even our smallest actions. So for one night, try and reduce the lights used and look up at the night sky. You’ll be conserving energy, resetting your circadian clock, and making life a little easier for nocturnal animals.
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