IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/envman/v36y2005i5d10.1007_s00267-004-0288-2.html

Do Embedded Roadway Lights Protect Sea Turtles?

Author

Listed:
  • Lesley Bertolotti

    (Biological Resources Division, Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection)

  • Michael Salmon

    (Florida Atlantic University, Department of Biological Sciences)

Abstract

Street lighting on coastal roadways is often visible at sea turtle nesting beaches, and disrupts the nocturnal orientation of hatchlings as they crawl toward the sea. Our objective was to determine whether an alternative lighting system (light-emitting diodes, embedded in the roadway pavement) prevented orientation disruption. Hatchlings at the beach oriented normally when only the embedded lights were on, or when all lighting was switched off. However, turtles showed poor orientation when street lighting was on. Measurements confirmed that street lighting was scattered to the beach, whereas embedded lighting was not. We conclude that embedded lighting keeps the beach dark and thus protects sea turtles. However, on two overcast evenings, lighting (“skyglow”) from nearby development, reflected by cloud cover to the beach, weakened hatchling orientation. Thus, both indirect (reflected) and direct sources of lighting negatively impact the turtles.

Suggested Citation

  • Lesley Bertolotti & Michael Salmon, 2005. "Do Embedded Roadway Lights Protect Sea Turtles?," Environmental Management, Springer, vol. 36(5), pages 702-710, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:envman:v:36:y:2005:i:5:d:10.1007_s00267-004-0288-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s00267-004-0288-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00267-004-0288-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00267-004-0288-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:envman:v:36:y:2005:i:5:d:10.1007_s00267-004-0288-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.