Many animals in Seattle are active at night and adapted to life in the dark. For nocturnal creatures, darkness is an important feature of their habitat that they rely on to avoid predators, to surprise prey, and to regulate the natural rhythms of their lives.

In cities, real darkness is hard to come by. Everything is illuminated. Streets, ball fields, parking lots, communication towers, high-rises, and porches. And we tend to keep the lights burning all night long. Skies over cities can be hundreds of times brighter than a natural, starlit sky. This artificial light at night, which has only appeared very recently in the long evolutionary history of species, can drastically disrupt, disorient, confuse and otherwise harm nocturnal animals.

Artificial light at night is known to attract night-flying migratory birds into urban areas where they can become disoriented, exhausted, and vulnerable to window collisions or cat predation.

Reducing artificial light is something we can all do to help protect wildlife. Take the Lights Out Pledge to receive guidelines and resources to get started!