News Main
Animals
Archaeology
Dinosaurs
Earth
History
Human Animal
Space
Tech

Switching Tower Lights Could Save Birds

Emily Sohn, Discovery News

The scientists randomly selected 21 towers around the state. All of the towers were about 470 feet tall. And each was assigned to one of four lighting scenarios: Blinking white lights; blinking red lights; red lights that alternate between bright and dim without ever shutting off completely; and steady-burning red lights that don't blink at all.

For 20 days, a huge network of researchers and volunteers walked around each tower at the same time every morning, picking up bird carcasses and sending them to Gehring for counting and analysis.

The final tally revealed that lighting alone has a huge impact on bird deaths.

"Those towers that had steady-burning red lights had significantly more collisions than all of the other three combined," Gehring said. "We could reduce avian collisions by as much as 70 percent, just by turning off those steady-burning lights."

For now, the Federal Aviation Administration approves only steady-burning reds and blinking whites. But those policies are outdated, Gehring said, and the FAA is planning to re-assess the safety of other scenarios.

It would be not only easy and cheap to switch steady reds over to blinking reds, she added. The change would also save energy and reduce maintenance costs.

"If the FAA deems it safe," she said, "That's a win-win."

Discovery News Blog: Born Animal

Partners in Flight

HowStuffWorks.com: Cell Phone Towers