The impact from light in marine systems is poorly understood, despite evidence that vessel lighting can cause seabird disorientation and collisions. We investigated the effects of LED colour and lumen output on attraction/disorientation in adult fairy prion (Pachyptila turtur) at Stephen’s Island, New Zealand. Fairy prions are known to interact with vessels at night. We used red, amber, and white lights, at varying lumen outputs, to measure attraction/disorientation responses, and looked at environmental factors that may affect these responses. Fairy prions were most impacted by white lights and high lumen output with increasing levels of attraction/disorientation from red to amber to white, and at higher levels of brightness. We also found that bright moonlight and higher wind speeds decreased attraction/disorientation responses, while higher relative humidity increased the responses. While there were insufficient groundings to statistically test the effect of light colour, the same pattern of increasing impact seemed to be present. Interestingly, we were also able to predict the ranking of the species’ response to each light treatment’s colour spectrum and lumen output based on the species’ optical sensitivity to different wavelengths (using the species’ spectral response curve). Our findings highlight the need to consider both LED colour and lumen output, alongside environmental conditions, and in our paper, we provide several recommendations for the design of mitigation measures that reduce anthropogenic lighting impacts on land and at sea.
 More info at:
Middlemiss K, et al. 2025. Understanding the Impacts of LED Light Pollution in Marine Ecosystems: Phototaxis Response in Fairy Prion. Journal of Ornithology

This study explores the effects of Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) on seabird diversity during the Arctic polar night. Authors combined a decade of citizen science-based seabird observations from Longyearbyen, Svalbard, with remote sensing data on light intensity, sea ice presence, and air temperature. This comprehensive dataset allowed us to assess how environmental conditions, including light pollution, influence seabird assemblages in the High Arctic. Our findings reveal that ALAN significantly impacts seabird diversity in this region. While individual species vary in their response, the overall trend shows a negative effect, with ALAN reducing the diversity of seabird communities. These results highlight an urgent need to address light pollution as a growing threat to seabird populations, particularly as the Arctic faces dynamic changes, including ice-free conditions and increased human activity. By combining innovative methods —remote sensing and citizen science— this research offers novel insights into light pollution's ecological impacts. This study represents an important step toward the conservation of seabirds, one of the most globally threatened bird groups, and underscores the need for sustainable management practices in the rapidly changing Arctic environment.
More info at:
Balazy K, et al. 2024. Illuminating the Arctic: Unveiling seabird responses to artificial light during polar darkness through citizen science and remote sensing. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation 

Light attraction is a well–documented phenomenon affecting seabirds world–wide, but it is typically associated with fledglings.  There is little in the literature regarding the impact on breeding adult seabirds on land.  We document a large-scale fallout event of adult seabirds at a facility in the north-west of Kauaʻi.  In September of 2015, 131 adult endangered seabirds including 123 ʻaʻo (Newell’s Shearwater Puffinus newelli) and 6 ʻuaʻu (Hawaiian Petrels Pterodroma sandwichensis) were grounded by lights at the Kōkeʻe Air Force Station – the majority occurring over a two-night period.  This was caused by the proximity of the facility to large breeding colonies of the species coupled with bright, upward–facing, unshielded lights and nocturnal conditions that exacerbate the fallout phenomena - a waning moon (thus a dark night), with rain and fog.  In response to this event, the facility altered its lighting protocol to use only shielded low–intensity light bollards (amber (590nm) 33 watts LED).  Results from annual monitoring at the facility found only four grounded ‘a’o between 2016-2023 indicating that the new lighting regime dramatically reduced fallout.  We use the results of this study to provide recommendations for best–practice light minimization methods in similar situations worldwide.

More info at: 
Raine AF, et al. 2024. The impact of light attraction on adult seabirds and the effectiveness of minimization actions. Pacific Science

More info at: 
​Burt TV, et al. 2024. Reduction of coastal lighting decreases seabird strandings. PLoS One 

 Yelkouan shearwaters nest on Mediterranean islands, and like several other burrow nesting seabirds they approach their colonies only under the cover of darkness to avoid natural predators. A study recently published in Journal of Ornithology examined how light pollution from large ships refuelling at sea affected a colony of Yelkouan shearwaters nesting in a cave on Malta. The authors tagged adult shearwaters and used a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system to measure the number of birds passing in and out of the cave during the breeding seasons 2017 to 2020. The authors also measured ambient light at the cliff face where the shearwaters breed and tracked ship activity during that time.  The research showed that the presence of ships increased the brightness of the colony, with an effect similar to a full moon. As expected, the number of birds entering the colony was lower when the night was brighter and in the presence of ships. The authors suggest that colony attendance patterns adapted to the moon cycle are disrupted by artificial light, with potential effects on breeding success and colony recruitment. Moreover, despite some adult shearwaters attending nests in the presence of light pollution, the physiological impacts are unknown.  The study advocates against nocturnal ship activity in front of shearwater breeding colonies and encourage the global shipping industry to adopt guidelines to reduce its environmental impact.

More info at:
Austad M, et al. 2023. The effects of temporally distinct light pollution from ships on nocturnal colony attendance in a threatened seabird. Journal of Ornithology

When juveniles of burrow-nesting seabirds leave their nests to start their first migration they are often curtailed from reaching the sea, grounded across urban areas after encountering light pollution. We set out to test the hypothesis that exposure to light during growth, or lack thereof, could be a main driving factor leading to the higher vulnerability observed in seabird juveniles, and why fallout is a predominantly burrow-nesting species event. We recorded chicks behavioural responses towards two contrastingly artificial lights, red and blue, and exposed each chick five times, from 3 weeks old to near fledging. We then analysed the effect of the chicks’ age (i.e., younger chicks would have worse visual ability than older chicks, and show less behavioural responses), and amount of exposure to artificial light during growth (i.e., chicks exposed to light more times would have their visual systems more trained, consequently display more behavioural responses). Our results showed that repetitive exposure to the artificial light stimuli increased the number of responses, but chick’s age did not have any effect on the responses. As burrow-nesters chicks will mostly grow in dark environments, which lack sufficient light stimuli to train their visual systems, our findings provide evidence of the untrained vision at fledging, and its contribution to the vulnerability towards light pollution. The effects that persistent light pollution close to these birds breeding colonies may have on their vulnerability should now be investigated.