Every Night Light

      Every night, wild life is being harmed by the excess amount of light we as a civilization are transmitting while we navigate the dark streets. We might not have thought about the actual amount of damage we are doing to animals that live and hunt during the night. I chose to write about how light pollution is harming animals because living in Baytown there are a great number of light posts, and restaurant signs. I am going to write about how birds and amphibians are harmed by the artificial light. Such as disturbing their flight patterns, sleep patterned and mating problems.

                                      

       I am one of the people that needs to change because some times when I get home late from work I like to go play tennis in my neighborhood which has a built in light system. I feel bad each time I go because while I’m playing I always hear birds which I assume believe that its morning time when its actually ten p.m. I was not aware of how much harm I was actually doing until I watched The City Dark, that movie informed me with a great number of shocking information with made me sad and assumed of what I was doing. Almost every species of animals is harmed by the excess amount of light we are wasting at night.

                                     


         I also find it sad how we as a planet use night time light to symbolize how powerful, and how technologically advanced we are. Not only are we harming animals, we are also wasting a huge amount of energy. I plan on backing up my claim by providing a bunch of research that have a lot of useful information about how bats and birds flight patterns change when they are interrupted by light poles. I’m not only going to use birds, but anfibians as well. I have found an interesting article about how artificial light has decreased the frog population because under these lights male frogs do not make as many mating calls which lowers the amount of males that will end up reproducing with females. I want to do both species because I feel that the more different animals I use in this paper will add more a greater problem that spans to multiple species so hopefully more people will be come aware of this problem. 


                                      


        From the movie I am thinking about using the man who is a light designer in my essay. He is a great inovater who I feel really is making a change for the wildlife. His lights are perfect examples of how he is creating a better place for animals. With his lights shinning down, the birds will not get distracted and keep their flight patterns stable. For my research I have found many great articles on Academic Search Complete. Most of them are about how bats flight patterns have altered during artificial light, and also how they have struggled to follow during migrating seasons. There are many interesting quotes I can choose from, and I am confident I will be able to produce some quality evidence to back up my claim. I am very interested in trying to find alternatives to decreasing the amount of light that is being wasted, and protecting the wild life.