MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

At night, when sea turtles hatch, they instinctively crawl towards the brightest light they see. In nature, this would be the moon and stars reflecting off of the ocean. However, as we develop beachfront properties, the hatchlings are faced with a choice between the gleaming sea and a well-lit development, instead of a naturally dark jungle. Sea turtles cannot distinguish between natural and artificial light, and vision is the only sense they rely on to get to the ocean. Consequently, hatchlings have been documented crawling toward buildings instead of the sea, or if the the light off of the ocean and on shore are similarly bright, hatchlings can walk parallel to the ocean until they are eaten by a predator or die of exhaustion. Luckily, this environmental problem has a cheap and easy solution. If you own a beachfront property between North Carolina and Florida, you can switch the color of your lightbulbs, or redirect them so the bulb is not visible from the beach. These methods have been proven to cut down on the number of misdirected hatchlings, and this document will contain links to buy turtle-friendly lighting fixtures approved by the International Dark-Sky Association.


Reader profile: A beachfront property owner who does not want to spend the money to change the custom lighting on their beach house, and thinks the turtle-friendly lighting will be unattractive and/ or too dark.


Response: I bought a beach house so that I could design it a specific way and the lighting is an important part of the aesthetic. I don’t want to sacrifice the appearance of my own property that I paid for just to save some turtles. There is plenty of other beachfront they can nest on so why don’t they just avoid the front of my house? I also bought this house to entertain outside on my deck that faces the beach and I am not just going to have people over in the dark. Dim lighting is not only unattractive, but it could be dangerous when people are walking up and down the steps of the deck. I also spent enough money on this house already, and I am not going to go find and buy ugly lights to benefit an animal whose survival doesn’t have any impact on my life.

I will mainly use natural language citations as I am writing for a lay audience, with hyperlinks to buy the turtle-friendly lighting at the end of the document.

K, to address one of the aspects of this reader: is the presence of one set of lights in a beach where the others have dimmed their lights still problematic? You may want to take on the condition of complete compliance as necessary or if even some reduction in light helps. Do we have data on this?

Also, people can be astonishing resistant to environmental needs. Sad but true.