Excess lighting isn't good for people or wildlife.

‍It stresses us and wildlife, burns energy, and contributes to the decline of insect populations and to bird deaths at windows. Turning off just half of lighted windows during migration could reduce bird collisions by 60%.

Solutions are EASY. Use light IF, WHEN,and WHERE you need it. Keep it orange-red and minimized. Brighter isn’t safer.

• Turn off unnecessary lights, including landscaping and holiday/fairy lights. Especially 11pm-6am during migration (March -June and August-November 15).
• Use motion sensors or timers.
• Shade light to where you want it.
• Use lights on the orange-red range, and not white-blue.
• Use drapes and shutters to avoid indoor light escaping.
• Use dimmers or lower intensity lights when possible.
• Use phones or flashlights (preferably with red light), rather than static lights.

Commercial or Multifamily buildings

• Avoid lighting building lobbies, atria, plants, or fountains that attract birds closer to windows.
• Use desk lamps or task lighting for security desks/work stations rather than overhead lights.
• Schedule cleaning crews to work during daylight or early evening hours rather than after 11 pm.
• Use “zone capable” interior lighting systems that allow selected rather than all areas of an interior space to be illuminated.

Safety

Over-illumination can make way-finding and nighttime tasks less safe. Your eyes take too long to adjust when there’s too much contrast between brightly lit and darker areas. See photo.

Human Health

‍Research suggests that artificial light at night can negatively affect human health, increasing risks for obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes, breast cancer and more.

Birds and Nature

More than a thousand birds fatally hit the windows at McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago on one night October 2023. A study of McCormick place estimated halving lighted window area would reduce collisions by 11× in spring and 6× in fall. Bird mortality could be reduced by ∼60% by decreasing lights to minimum levels. Bright lights at night attract and confuse birds, especially when they are flying in stormy or foggy weather.  They draw them lower, toward windows, causing them to expend precious energy needed for migration. Resident birds also are affected: it can increase their breeding failure.

Many animals rely on natural cycles of daylight and darkness to trigger and regulate behaviors such as hunting, hiding from predators, mating, nesting, navigating, and communicating. Fireflies attract mates by blinking amber lights.  They stop blinking rather than compete with artificial lighting. They cannot mate and their populations plummet.  Moths and other insects throng to outdoor lighting, where they are ‘captured’ in white lights and easy pickings for predators that kill and eat them at such unnaturally high levels it is impacting their overall populations. Often they just die of exhaustion.

Save Energy and Carbon too.

Plant Health

‍Plants too depend on natural cycles of daylight and darkness to regulate processes such as flowering, leaf drop, and growth form.‍

See the new City of Evanston Ordinance about Lighting in our resources below.

Reducing outdoor lighting is one of the six items in the Pollinator Pledge.

Improve habitat for birds and pollinators when you Take the Pollinator Pledge.

TAKE ACTION: Share our doorhangers to spread the word about outdoor lighting. ‍

Email Habitat@NaturalHabitatEvanston.Org for materials to share.