Lights out — or lights on? That’s the question that is beginning to roil downtown skyscraper owners and operators as a group of volunteers pushes for a Lights Out Cleveland campaign during periods of bird migration in the spring and fall.
A campaign is encouraging Cleveland buildings to turn out the lights at night in an effort to save migratory birds. Ohio Lights Out and Lights Out Cleveland said building collisions are the leading cause of death in birds during migration in North America, resulting in about a half a billion fatalities each year.
A statewide project called Ohio Lights Out, is trying to get big buildings in big cites to turn off lights at night so that migrating birds don’t get confused and slam into them and die.
Tim Jasinski from the Lake Erie Nature & Science Center, along with Harvey Webster from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History were in the Fox 8 Cleveland studios this morning promoting the Lights Out Cleveland effort and the 3rd Annual Birds of Lake Erie Day. Check out the clip here
Lights Out Cleveland is a group of local partnering organizations working together to create awareness about the effects brightly lit buildings have on nocturnally migrating birds. Through this awareness we will create change and save migrating birds’ lives.
It’s that time of year again, birds of all kinds start to migrate out of Ohio in droves, but they face a threat along their way—collisions into buildings beaming with bright lights. These nighttime incidents leave dozens of birds injured or dead and now a group of volunteers is trying to prevent that from happening.
Every spring and fall, millions of birds migrate over Ohio but they face a threat along their way — nighttime collisions with brightly lit buildings that leave birds either injured or dead. Tim Jasinski’s group of volunteers is just one aspect of Lights Out Cleveland — the other? Convincing building owners to flip the switch, overnight.
In the predawn darkness on a steamy mid-September morning, hours before the downtown sidewalks bustle with commuters, a dozen people carrying butterfly nets gather on East 6th Street beside the Drury Plaza Hotel. They discuss their game plan as the chip calls of migrating thrush and warblers serenade them overhead. Unfortunately, many of these songbirds will not survive the overnight flight they have made across Lake Erie.
Betsey Merkel (Web and Marketing, Western Cuyahoga Audubon) recently discussed Lights Out with Matthew Shumar (Program Coordinator, Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative) and Amy LeMonds (Director of Wildlife, Lake Erie Nature and Science Center). Check out the interviews:
Cemeteries are places people find their final rest. For birds, these green spaces in cities can save their lives. Birders have long known these gardens of stone attract migrating birds, and in downtown Cleveland, it’s no different. Birder Ron Greene is visiting Erie Street Cemetery, looking for rarities. “I came in from Chesterland, looking for a Yellow-breasted Chat.”
