From: K A Duhring To: colwell@mindspring.com Cc: skintner@co.volusia.fl.us Subject: Sea Turtles and Light Pollution Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 5:21 PM Cathy: I received a forwarded message from Steve Kintner regarding the ISTF project. As the County's Protected Species consultant, my company (Ecological Associates, Inc./EAI) would be happy to assist your students. The issue of light pollution and sea turtles is indeed a hot topic. Your students' interest in helping solve the problem is exactly the kind of community participation that is needed. To briefly give you my background, I have a Masters Degree in coastal management from FIT (now Florida Tech). I worked for 8.5 years as an Environmental Biologist for Volusia County. Since relocating to Jensen Beach two years ago, I have worked as a private sea turtle research consultant with Ecological Associates, Inc. I have been involved with sea turtle protection on Volusia County beaches since 1994. I assisted the County with the development of the Beach Lighting Management Plan by evaluating the existing ordinances, enforcement efforts and the continuation of sea turtle disorientations caused by lights in spite of the enforcement programs currently in place. Steve Kintner's suggestion that the ISTF project focus on how to directly measure light on the beach is valid and I have some suggestions/questions along these lines. 1. What kind of light meters are currently available and what are they used for (e.g. photography)? 2. What do light meters measure ? 3. What kind of light is most disruptive to sea turtles ? 4. As your students will discover through their research, humans and sea turtles perceive light very differently. What is the difference between the area that a light meter "sees" compared to what a sea turtle sees ? 5. Is there a light meter that can be used to measure light illumination levels on Volusia County beaches (i.e. a device that can be held out on the beach and measure light coming from adjacent hotels, condominiums, houses and commercial businesses) ? 6. Is it possible to adapt standard light meters to be more similar to sea turtle's perception to better assess illumination that is most harmful to the animals ? Regardless of the specific topic chosen, here are some links to check out. Light pollution in general (these pages also have more links): 1. Illuminating Engineering Society of North America ( www.iesna.org) 2. International Dark Sky Association (www.ida.org) 3. Lighting Research Center at RPI (www.lrc.rpi.edu) Sea turtles & lights 4. Turtle Time, Inc. (www.swflorida.com/turtletime/lighting) check out "Beach Lighting" which opens up a manual co-authored by Erik Martin, our Scientific Director at EAI. We have hard copies of this very informative manual available. 5. FDEP Division of Marine Resources, Bureau of Protected Species Mgmt. (www.dep.state.fl.us/psm) Check out the Coastal Roadway Lighting Manual under sea turtles, which was also written by EAI. This manual is specific to streetlights. Lighting Companies that may have web pages: ERS, Inc. General Electric Heath Zenith Intermatic, Inc. Lithonia Lighting Philips Lighting Quality Lighting Ruud Lighting Solar Outdoor Lighting Starfire Lighting Sterner Lighting Systems Spaulding Lighting Thomas Industries Voigt Lighting EAI's scientists are available to answer any questions or provide further direction if needed. I can be reached personally at this e-mail address (kduhring@juno.com) or questions may be posted to the company at eai@gate.net for all of our staff to consider. Good luck on the competition. Karen Duhring Ecological Associates, Inc. PO Box 405 Jensen Beach, FL 34958-0405 kduhring@juno.com eai@gate.net ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]