Photo courtesy Pelagicos Lab.
MSMS graduate Jennifer Urmston (2018 cohort) has published the first chapter of her MS thesis. Urmston worked with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent Keith Swindle and her HPU advisor David Hyrenbach, Ph.D., analyzing eight years (2012–2019) of observations of road-killed shearwaters along the Kalanianaʻole Highway on Oʻahu to compare mortality before (2012–15) and after (2016–19) a transition in highway lighting from unshielded high-pressure sodium (HPS) to full-cutoff light-emitting diode (LED) streetlights. Altogether, the interaction between moon illumination and wind speed was the most important predictor, suggesting that more shearwaters are grounded during nights with low moon and strong winds. The lack of an increase in mortality after the change from HPS to shielded LED streetlights suggests the new streetlights did not worsen the light pollution impacts on wedge-tailed shearwaters on Southeast Oʻahu.
You can download this open-source paper here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0265832
You can read more about this project here: https://www.pelagicos.net/research_lightpollution.htm
