Migrating birds are drawn off course by red or white lights found on ocean oil or natural gas installations, writes Conservation magazine. Some birds will collide with the installations, while others will circle for hours until exhaustion brings them down. “Hundreds of disoriented birds congregate on the installations’ decks, and some stay long enough to die of starvation.” To keep birds on their natural migration course, Royal Philips Electronics and Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij BV, an oil and gas company, developed new lights that won’t attract birds, but will still provide enough lighting for rig workers.
According to Conservation, early findings from field tests confirm that blue or green light is less disruptive to birds because the shorter wavelengths have less impact on a bird’s “magnetic compass.” Blue light was the least disruptive wavelength, but it made workers uncomfortable. “Green light is almost as innocuous as blue and actually enhances people’s depth perception. So a compromise was struck, and the researchers developed new lights around a spectrum that includes lots of green and just a little red, which ensures workers can see emergency equipment if they need it.”
Installing new green lights on all North Sea rigs could reduce the number of birds impacted by the lights from roughly 6 million to around 600,000, writes Conservation. “And there are plenty of other good places to put them. Airports, highways, and a host of other lighted structures wreak havoc on bird populations.”
According to National Geographic, land-based oil rigs are also detrimental to bird populations as they provide “subsidized housing” to predators.
Image credit: Conservation magazine / Phillips Electronics America
