Lights from cars, flashlights, houses and streetlights can all prevent turtles from navigating to their nesting grounds. This week on Possibly we explain how you can help keep sea turtles safe.
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Sea turtles begin their lives by hatching on sandy beaches and head straight for the ocean. After decades at sea, the females return to the same beach where they were born to lay their eggs. But their journey isn’t easy—especially when human activity gets in the way. Today we’re going to shine a light on how light pollution affects sea turtle nesting. Pun intended…
We had Aaron Seto and Esther Liu from our Possibly Team look into this.
Aaron Seto: Hi, Megan!
Esther Liu: Hello!
Megan Hall: So, what’s the deal with sea turtles and light pollution?
Esther Liu: To help us understand how light pollution harms sea turtles, we talked to Rachel Tighe.
Rachel Tighe: I am the lighting project manager for Sea Turtle Conservancy, and I’ve been with Sea Turtle Conservancy going on 10 years.
Aaron Seto: It turns out that sea turtles use the moon and stars to find their way around.
Rachel Tighe: Whether it’s nesting female coming up to lay eggs, or it’s the hatchlings emerging from their nests and making their way to the ocean for the first time.
Megan Hall: How do the moon and stars tell them where the ocean is?
Esther Liu: Moonlight and starlight reflect off of the ocean water, and this creates a sort of beacon to guide mother sea turtles back to the ocean after they lay their eggs.
Aaron Seto: This same beacon of light guides baby sea turtles into the ocean after they hatch.
Esther Liu: But here’s the issue – our artificial lights create an even stronger glow. And that tricks the sea turtles into heading away from the ocean.
Rachel Tighe: These bright white lights can cause these adult females and these hatchlings to become confused and end up in some crazy places.
Megan Hall: How crazy are we talking about?
Rachel Tighe: Roadways and pools, and there’s even cases of them being found in an elevator in the building before all because of lights.
Aaron Seto: Sadly, many of these sea turtles never make it back to the water. Many of them die from exhaustion or even get picked off by predators like raccoons or birds
Megan Hall: Where is this light pollution coming from anyways?
Rachel Tighe: Exterior lights on balconies, exterior pull lights and parking lots, roadway lights. All those can cause a problem. But so can interior lights, if you’re visiting the beach, or you live on the beach and you don’t close your curtains at night, light coming from inside your own home or hotel room can cause problems.
Esther Liu: And the scale of the issue? Well, it’s global. Rachel’s organization, the Sea Turtle Conservation estimates that in Florida alone…
Rachel Tighe: hundreds of 1000s of hatchlings are disoriented each year, and it’s hard to measure how much one light can impact one turtle, because it only takes one light to disorient a sea turtle.
Megan Hall: What can we do to stop this?
Aaron Seto: Well if you’re staying at the beach, here’s Rachel’s advice:
Rachel Tighe: You can follow three rules that were put together by the state of Florida and other scientists and advisors.
Esther Liu: The first rule is keep it low. This means keep your lights low to the ground so they’re less visible from the beach. It also means using lower Watts and lumens.
Aaron Seto: The second rule is to keep it shielded. Just like it sounds, this means covering a light with an opaque shield that blocks the light from shining outward and directs light toward the ground
Esther Liu: Finally, the last rule is to keep it long. This refers to using light bulbs that produce long wavelength light such as red and orange. That’s because turtles are less sensitive to those kinds of lights.
Megan Hall: That seems easy enough. But, is there anything happening at a larger, policy scale to protect these sea turtles?
Aaron Seto: All 6 species of sea turtles in the US are protected under the Endangered Species Act, which gives the federal government some power to protect their habitat. But a lot of coastal communities around the world have taken matters into their own hands. Some have rules about using turtle-friendly lighting, and others actually require lights to be turned off near nesting areas during certain times.
Esther Liu: Sometimes it’s the little things in life – like turning off a light – that can make the biggest impacts!
Megan Hall: Amazing! Thanks, Aaron and Esther!
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at “askpossibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.
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