November 2024: Dopamine Rush.

This month, host Bill McGeeney is joined by Kevin Beare, whom you may know better as CapeMayAstro, Michael Rymer from Dark Sky makes a return visit, and the always insightful, Frank Turina of the Night Sky Resource Center joins us once again!

See Full Show Notes, Lighting Tips and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Like this episode, share it with a friend!

Bill's Picks:

• Beaker Street Science Photography Prize, Beaker Street Science Festival.
  
  
• Lights Out Greenwich! New Town Lighting Regulations Target Light Pollution, Greenwich Free Press.
  
  
• ‘Clear message’ from community on dark skies, Sunshine Coast Council.
  
  
• Service proposes to list the Bethany Beach firefly as threatened, Jalyn Williams, US Fish & Wildlife Service.
  
  
• Foxfire Brings Magical Light to the Dark Forest, Leigh Ann Henion, Atlas Obscura.

Chapters

• 7:04 Underwater Encounters and Light Pollution
• 11:53 Astrotourism and Light Pollution Solutions
• 25:37 Protecting Star Skies & Endangered Species
• 37:58 The Impact of Artificial Light
• 46:33 Engaging With Dark Sky Advocates

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:06

light pollution news, november 2024 dopamine rush. In this episode we look at the tale of the bethany beach firefly. We'll go on an endangered list. Is natalja driving astro tourism and we talk about firefox mushrooms and foxfire browsers. Or is it the other way around? I have a fun panel for you this month from tiktok, cape may astros, kevin bear, dark skies. Michael reimer dials in as he escapades around the west in search of the perfect night sky shot, and one of my personal favorite guests, a man well versed in environmental issues, mr frank terena, returns once again. You'll definitely want to listen to this episode of Light Pollution News coming right up.

Bill McGeeney: 0:53

Welcome to Light Pollution News. We are finishing up our November episode and my oh my, where did this year already go? It's now Thanksgiving, or at least Thanksgiving's coming up. So let me reintroduce you at home to a great lineup we have this month a couple of familiar faces and one new one. How about we start with the new guy, kevin bear, known as kevin, from tiktok and the instagram reels channel, cape may astro. You may find kevin at night working the streets of cape may, showing people the unique objects hidden behind the light pollution down there At least, I guess the ocean side is pretty good, though, right.

Kevin Beare: 1:31

Yeah, it's looking south. So you know, again it's been wonderful to be able to. I always tell people it's like, you know, let's put our blinders on. We have our hands up. You know the side of our face but you know we're in a Bortle five sky on the boardwalk and Cape May points of Bordeaux four, but you know we can, you know, see the Milky Way. You know it's not perfect, but again we can see it. And you know, people that you know come down to Cape May visiting. They're like, oh, your sky is so much different than ours. So again people appreciate it, which is really wonderful to share.

Bill McGeeney: 1:58

Yeah. So it makes us special about going down there. You know it's just having all those little niches and pieces that we don't have anywhere in the general Philadelphia or New York city area. So next up, mr Frank Tarina makes a return appearance. Always glad to have you on, frank. I know it's been a handful of months since you, Betty Maya and ice Muhammad were all on the show, which is real fun show, so really glad to have you back and still still envious about all of your trips down to Chile. And last but not least, we have our third guest here who kind of skimmed over last episode a little bit. You know him because he's with Dark Sky International, does a lot of talks, so if you're out west you probably have seen his face, mr Michael Reimer. Michael, how is everything at Dark Sky? Why don't you tell us anything that's going on or some of the new stuff that may be happening over there?

Michael Rymer: 2:48

Well, of course we have the Under One Sky conference at the beginning of this month of November. So if you weren't able to attend that or want to go back and watch things, we'll have that information to all of our Dark Sky advocates and members, because we have a great lineup of speakers from around the world. It's going to be, you know, very exciting. We have, you know, over 500 people in attendance at least, and it's it's always fun. You know this is an interesting format. You know all virtual and the 24 hour thing is hard on staff because we all have to be there for it, but it's always great. And so thank you to everybody who was able to make it for the 2024 version of Under One Sky.

Michael Rymer: 3:31

And then we have some other things coming up in the organization a lot of heavy work with policy, kind of revitalizing our approach on policy and getting some really solid updated language, for before we had kind of a model lighting ordinance.

Michael Rymer: 3:47

So we have something in the works that's going to be kind of a successor to that and really kind of hit the simplicity of what a really good lighting ordinance should look like, and then this can be used in the future as kind of a good starting point if you're interested in pursuing a dark sky community certification.

Michael Rymer: 4:06

So we really want to simplify these things when it comes to getting a good lighting management policy and where you live, because ultimately, we feel like the solutions are pretty simple. You know, we're not here to tell you how to enforce things. We leave that up to each municipality as it sees fit, of course. But as far as the guiding principles, what we want is something that our five principles for responsible outdoor lighting are really embodied in, kind of this template of an ordinance. So be on the lookout for that as that launches. But the organization itself we're growing. Our Dark Sky staff is growing, which means we're getting the support that we need to continue on our work, Thanks to folks like you guys here on this call and, you know, folks who are listening at home. So we sincerely appreciate all your support, both financially and with your time and effort.

Bill McGeeney: 4:59

For Under One Sky. You guys have one of my all-time favorite guests I've had on the show, Travis Nowitzki. It's showing off his amazing photos. The man has a knack for finding incredible shots, especially of the Northern Lights. Really glad everyone got to see Travis.

Bill McGeeney: 5:18

Under One Sky is such a phenomenal event. I'm really glad you guys do it every year. For me it happens whenever we're in Nashville visiting family, so it's very hard for me to watch it. So you know it is what it is, but we don't plan our lives around under one sky, unfortunately, lucky you. Well, I want to start things off this month with a photo contest, a very interesting photo contest, whereby a contestant named Toby Scrapple took the People's Choice Award for capturing a frog sitting on a mushroom. So what? So what are glowing with a biofluorescent, bioluminescent green, and the award was for the beaker street science festival, a festival well, all things that are science. It takes place down in tasmania, australia. So I'm curious what is the coolest thing you guys have ever seen in a wild? Bonus points if you have a picture to back it up. I feel like frank probably already has that, but maybe the other two you guys might not in the wild.

Michael Rymer: 6:27

Hmm, the condors, the american condors in kind, of the glen canyon national recreation area, the northern arizona, southern utah. That's pretty cool seeing those big birds flying around. I, I mean, this country is so full of amazing wildlife. I haven't seen any bioluminescent creatures though myself, so that's pretty cool to see a frog on a mushroom and they're both glowing. Yeah, that's pretty neat.

Frank Turina: 6:59

So there was one. It just kind of came to my mind because it was a long time ago. Back when I was in college, I was in Florida and I was doing my checkout dive for my scuba certification and we have to for those of you who haven't been certified. You go. One of the checkout things is you go down to the bottom and you have to take off your tanks and your mask and then put everything back on. So my instructor pointed to me and so I took my mask off, I took my tank off.

Frank Turina: 7:31

It took me probably a minute or something like that to put everything back on and fix my mask and clear it, and when I opened my eyes we had been enveloped by this gigantic school of I think they were called yellow jacks. They were these just bright yellow fish. So we're right in the middle of this gigantic school of bright yellow fish and they're like zipping this way and zipping that way. It was probably like my eyes just got like this big around. It was like one of the coolest things I've ever experienced in this day.

Kevin Beare: 8:04

Natural-wise. I think that it had to be night snorkeling in St Thomas. You know I had underwater light, I was already certified. But we, you know, just did night snorkeling this night. But as soon as we got in the water we had phosphorescence in the water.

Kevin Beare: 8:19

But I had no idea that fish sleep at night. They were all on 45 degree angles, you know, just like some of the parrotfish were. You know they have almost like a slime or balloon that they put around themselves, but the fish looked like they were actually deceased. They were everywhere on 45 degree angles and they were still. And you kind of go up and poke them and they move. But you know all the nocturnal things were coming out, you know seeing, you know a beautiful grouper maybe getting a hold of a blue tang and capturing it, opening its mouth, escaping. But the next time he got one he actually cold cocked it into the coral and ate it. But you know to be a fly on the wall, move the water, see these things going down. It's pretty special. But I had no idea that fish slept like that. So that was kind of cool. I don't have pictures to show it because I didn't have a camera at that point. So that was that All right you're going to pass on that.

Bill McGeeney: 9:11

That was really cool. Here's from this event, the Beaker Street Science Festival. There's also another photo you can find. All these photos are actually pretty amazing, but this one really illustrates the impact of light pollution brilliantly. The but this one really illustrates the impact of light pollution brilliantly. The image starts off on the left with Hobart City, the horizon is lit and above which you can't really see the Milky Way, and then, as the horizon spans to the right, it gradually becomes less light, polluted and the Milky Way becomes more apparent. It's a very dramatic, very dramatic photo that you know, michael, for your uses, for Dark Skies uses. It will be an astonishing photo to use because it really does show in real time the effects of a good sky versus a really cruddy sky has.

Michael Rymer: 10:01

Yeah, photography is obviously. I mean, that does a lot of heavy lifting for our outreach. It provides the examples right, lifting for our outreach, you know. So it's, it provides the examples right and we can ask people to remember what bad lighting looks like. If you know, we're giving a presentation or something, but these photos really paint the literal picture of what is out there, what we can see, maybe not in like a heavily edited photo, but you know, I personally think seeing it, seeing the milky way with my eyes, even if it doesn't look like a picture, is better. It's just the more personal experience with it. But you know, the photographs, they do the talking and really elicit the emotional response from folks. So I mean, we good lighting, lighting, we certainly want to use it to our advantage to say this is what this looks like, this is what it shouldn't look like.

Bill McGeeney: 10:51

Kevin, have you ever heard the word noctalgia?

Kevin Beare: 10:53

I have not, I just read it.

Bill McGeeney: 11:00

So noctalgia the fine folks here I know that Frank and Michael probably have heard about it Just, at least the very least, no proximity to John Barentine. The word itself. It was featured on September 9th in Cambridge University Press as the word of the day. And for you at home who's not quite familiar with what Natalja is, it's a feeling of sadness felt by some people because light pollution means they can no longer see dark sky at night. And I actually have this feeling because we just someone I didn't realize this was actually possible in the city whereby you have your municipal group that takes care of street lights and then you have other organizations, say like the water department or someone else, who also can put up street lights, and they put a really bad one in just by us. So feature, and I I feel very lethargic at the moment because now it's it's even worse.

Bill McGeeney: 11:53

So, speaking of natalia, in a piece from the journal appalachia, laura poppock weaves a tale of the main woods international dark sky park by first relating it to her childhood experience of growing up sneaking out onto her roof to look at the stars. Poppock then laments gradually seeing everyone in her neighborhood pop on new floodlights, thereby dimming her experience with the subsequent views of nighttime sky. The feeling of curiosity, wonder and connection that we spoke so much about last episode, that initially guided Poppock, is also echoed by the Appalachian Mountain Club brand director, Jenny Ward, whereby Ward is quoted as saying I want people to feel this and Kevin, you were talking about that when you're out there connecting with people on actually seeing these different objects in nighttime sky. The article itself goes into the makings and justifications for the 150 000 acre main woods international dark sky park, which I hope to actually stargaze at some time, even though I've hiked through it. It's a very interesting piece and highly recommend you at home giving it a read.

Bill McGeeney: 13:01

So this idea, this idea of Nectalgia you know it drives astrotourism right now and I think this idea sets it up for nicely for this additional story we have out of Edmonton, where out on Elk Island National Wildlife Park there appears to be more folks seeking out the park because they simply can't see the stars from Edmonton. The increased nighttime uses have seen a corresponding uptick in illegal campfires, trash, noise issues and, unfortunately, over 1,000 animals have been killed, including some species at risk, by people driving at night Park. Officials are currently installing gates to curtail where people can go in the park are currently installing gates to curtail where people can go in the park. One star party in this park actually counted over 5,000 visitors. That's how much Nectalgia impacts people. So I'm curious, Mike, we see these stories pop up usually with meteor showers or you know you name kind of like the Oroborio, something big usually drives a lot of people out who aren't. They're not used to being in a nighttime environment, right?

Bill McGeeney: 14:12

So, they do things right. They do things like they will in Mount Rainier's case. They drive over fragile areas because they don't realize what the heck they're doing. It's dark, yeah, I know you guys, through your use of the places and parks, kind of promote this astrotourism. Does dark sky have a way to help prepare or educate these areas on what they'll need to do to protect them at night?

Michael Rymer: 14:37

to protect visitors. Is that what you to present?

Bill McGeeney: 14:39

both you know, like the during the area and the right during the daytime you have high uses, but you don't see the impact as much, typically because you have people there or rules there's constraints. In the nighttime, it's usually the opposite.

Michael Rymer: 14:59

Right part of the eligibility for International Dark Sky Park is that there must be an allowance for public access to part or all of the park for part or all of the night. That's kind of what we look for and so you know, because that promotes people going to these places and experiencing the night sky as it should be. It's a park, it's recreation. So that's what we certainly encourage and enforce. But with parks at night, we want them to have a lighting management policy that addresses visitor lighting, temporary lighting and to warn people of don't shine your lights into people's faces, Don't use your bright headlights and things like that to be cognizant of the natural environment. Obviously, safety is key, right, but when your lights again aren't needed, use them responsibly, Turn them off, Use red light, Protect your night vision, Protect other people's night vision.

Michael Rymer: 15:58

So that's how we kind of encourage good stewardship both of the park staff and the visitors to these places and AMC. They do a great job. You know they get people out there. It's one of the hopefully not so few in the future places out in the northeastern part of the country because there's a lot of dark skies. It's maybe not as prevalent in the western part of the nation. But there's plenty, and AMC is a great example of that and I'm glad that they're trying to get people to come experience it and to feel it, to really feel that awe.

Bill McGeeney: 16:33

They bring dollars too. Astrotourism definitely brings a substantial amount of dollars. I guess the other side of it, too is people getting they get into these places, they get into these dark skies. You know people getting they get into these places, they get into these dark skies. I know at Church Springs they have difficulty staffing at night, primarily because it's night right, and when you have a park that's open 24-7 and you have people come along, is there more incentive to do something where you might abuse the park, or is that something we shouldn't worry about, because that can happen?

Michael Rymer: 17:08

at any given time. Yeah, that's a tough one you have. I guess you have to trust that those visiting can adhere to the rules and be responsible. I mean, but it's such a wide array of people out there you never know and you can't police everybody's actions, unfortunately. But that comes through with the education aspect. If you can educate everybody that comes through the doors as much as possible and trust that they know what they're going to do is the right thing.

Bill McGeeney: 17:40

Well, maybe Edmonton and some other parks might be able to take a lesson from up in the mitten. On top of the mitten in Michigan, over at the Headlands International Dark Sky Park, they actually expanded their parking lot. That's a very nice parking lot. It meets demand now. And then they installed red guidance path lighting to assist visitors to get around. So, you know, I feel like they're thinking about how people are going to move, trying to help around. So you know, I feel like they're they're thinking about. They're thinking about how people are going to move, trying to help people, because really, at the end of the day, people turn on their white lights because they don't know what the heck they're doing. Right, like that's. That's it. So I think that's a very responsible approach.

Bill McGeeney: 18:18

In policy related news, greenwich Connecticut is rolling out plans that it passed back on March 27th to create new lighting guidance in the community for reducing light pollution. The regulations include the following All exterior lighting must be fully shielded, with exceptions for light from main entry points. All floodlights must be controlled by motion sensors. Led lighting must be 3000 Kelvin or less in temperature. Uplighting which was previously banned is still banned. The lighting changes were brought about by a coalition of ecological actors in Greenwich. So my question to you guys in other communities, prohibitional landscape or uplighting, I think would probably be met with pitchforks. I really think that's a hard sell for many communities. Forks, I really think that's a hard sell for many communities. Barring that part of the ordinance, how practical is this approach?

Frank Turina: 19:13

template to being stamped in other communities out there. Can it be replicated? It strikes me as a really good starting point. Agreed, I think these are sort of the minimum ideas that should be encompassed in an ordinance. But I think, you know, you can probably do more. I would think so, but I think it's a good starting point for other communities to say, hey, look, what they did in Greenwich, you know, and then sort of do some more research and try to find some other ways to even improve on this.

Bill McGeeney: 19:41

Yeah, and I know down in New Jersey, down in Cape May, you guys were having a lighting ordinance discussion at the very least last year, Kevin. I don't know if that was an individual community or if that was county level. I don't really understand how things work in Jersey typically.

Kevin Beare: 19:57

That was a city thing that they started with the light pollution, the ordinance. But again, when I read it and found out that you know they were omitting you know the commercial restaurants and commercial properties. You know motels, hotels it's kind of a little frustrating. And even on the Washington street mall beautiful place, you know the the the store owners put up $75,000 worth of you know string lights and really lit up. I used to be able to go on the Washington street mall. I can down by the church it's really difficult by the rotary clock.

Kevin Beare: 20:33

I know some people would be like you had no idea where I'm talking about. But you know I've. I've talked to city council members and again I'm just trying to educate. It's like you know there's these things called timers. You know that. You know once. You know the public does leave, you know the area that. You know we can turn things, start turning things off. And you know even the motels. You know hotels, trying to make them aware that.

Kevin Beare: 20:55

You know again it's like could we incorporate? You know better. You know management of the lights for commercial properties. You know after midnight, after 11 o'clock, you know that we could start dimming things down to be cognizant, because that's obviously the most important time, and we are a birding community and I think that you know we can, again, it's just about educating and trying to move forward, you know, as best that we can, you know with. You know, trying to make things as dark as possible. So, again, just trying to. You know, take baby steps and you know. But you know continuing to change and adapt. But you know, seeing those lights you know there's nobody walking on it and just seeing all this light pollution that's beaming up from all these string lights, it's a little frustrating. You know. Again, when they could easily put a timer, I'll pay for the damn timer. You know it's like I'll pay for it.

Bill McGeeney: 21:42

I've wondered about the timer. Well, I don't understand why timers are such a hard thing. I know, I guess let me rephrase I don't understand why timers are always met with such resistance.

Kevin Beare: 21:53

Yeah, I think that you know again, unfortunately. You know you think about security, you know again, and things like that, but again, I think it's more of a novelty thing, you know, trying to light things up for people. But you know again, they still have certain lights that you know are almost 5000K. They've replaced a lot of the gas lights with, you know, the, you know poison. You know it's just the blue lights, the 5000K, and you know it's just. You know we need to make those the 27K and be cognizant. But again, just baby steps.

Bill McGeeney: 22:23

Right Well up in Massachusetts it appears that an offshore wind farm run by Nantucket by Vineyard Wind has experienced some hiccups. Back on July 13th a blade either fell off or flew off and it was only noticed when chunks of the small broken pieces of the blade actually washed ashore. Now the Embattled Company is receiving heavy pushback for not being able to implement aircraft detection lighting systems which would turn the red light that sits on top of the tower, turn that off when there's no planes around and then when a plane comes in within proximity it would begin to blink. Per a good neighbor agreement, the aircraft detection system was supposed to be operational once the system went into effect and once the actual wind farm went in to start producing energy, which it is doing right now. But the detection systems obviously aren't operational.

Bill McGeeney: 23:19

So this is a really interesting case and, kevin, this is something I know New Jersey's been toying with. I don't know if they're going to do any aircraft detection lighting systems, but I know New Jersey's probably looking to this case of Vineyard winds to see what may happen when they decide to put in their offshore wind system. This is probably an issue whereby they have some cost overruns. They didn't expect to have some issues building out. They went over their capital expenditure. Maybe some forecasting errors. Many issues could be going on here. Frank, have you ever seen these aircraft detection systems actually be implemented?

Frank Turina: 23:56

Yeah, when I was with the Park Service, we recommended that some offshore wind facilities look into that type of a system, and I know it requires a Federal Aviation Administration approval to implement that system, which is not always forthcoming, I believe. So it has to be the right conditions and the right location and the right type of airspace for those types of systems to be feasible. So we have. Typically, if there was a wind farm that was going to be affecting a national park, one of the recommendations that we would look at or recommend was the use of these sort of proximity radar type of lighting systems.

Bill McGeeney: 24:42

How long does it take? Do you know how long does it take to get approval from the FAA on something like?

Frank Turina: 24:46

that. I don't know for sure, but I know one of the cases was, I think was, a wind farm off the coast of New Jersey, New York area, I believe, a big wind farm that they were proposing. I'm not sure what happened with that or if they ever got the approval from FAA to implement it. Part of the issue is that it's such a busy airspace off the coast of New York City and Philadelphia and that area.

Bill McGeeney: 25:10

New York and all that yeah.

Frank Turina: 25:12

Exactly so. I know they ran into some issues, but I don't really know for sure what happened with that or how long it took.

Bill McGeeney: 25:20

I knew you'd have some insight here, frank yeah.

Frank Turina: 25:23

I remember there were some letters back and forth with the FAA about the use of those types of systems.

Bill McGeeney: 25:30

Gotcha. Okay, well, let's move on to the next story, and it's obviously November, the votes are in, but we're not talking about the presidential election. Out in Australia, along the Sunshine Coast, which sits about our northern Brisbane, queensland council leaders polled 5,800 households on whether the council should undertake a path to protect star skies. The resounding response 95% of the 1,200 respondents said yes, and the survey ran from May 20th through June 16th of this year. And the survey ran from May 20th through June 16th of this year.

Bill McGeeney: 26:01

The main driver to the path was responsible exterior outdoor lighting policies that appear to stem from the work that astronomers like Ken Whishaw at the Mullaney Observatory a hobbyist I believe it's a hobbyist observatory sitting on the grounds adjacent to the Mullaney Golf Club. The inland preserve would include 337 square miles, 873 square kilometers of land, with buffering communities. The community is looking at this as a potential tourism boom. It should also be noted that this would be the first step for the actual coast, which is beginning to address coastal sea turtle-friendly lighting. Mike, from the start of the application to achieving designation, what does this undertake? How long does it take for this?

Michael Rymer: 26:42

community to get to this point. Yeah, that all typically depends. We advise people to budget for one to three years. That's about the average amount for an application, but we've seen some take less than that, some take way longer. So it really just depends on how much work has already been done versus what needs to be accomplished.

Michael Rymer: 27:03

So if we're talking about a community, if they have a lighting ordinance already in place that we think aligns with the certification requirements for a community, I mean the ordinance takes the longest amount of time, especially if you're kind of starting from scratch because you have to go through the political processes. Ninety-five percent of households in this community are on board with this kind of thing. This is not going to be a tough sell for the leaders of it. So that makes me think that this could take a couple years, because with the community you also want to get a lot of outreach going, a lot of the education, getting community partnerships and all that stuff, and that can take you know, that can take a little bit of time. So I mean, just with this information Bill, I'd say a little over two years, I think, with this. But that community buy-in is really what makes or breaks an application, and if you have almost 100% of people on board, easy peasy.

Bill McGeeney: 28:09

And they're doing the same kind of outreach that you do, kevin. They're doing long lines from an observatory, a lot of public viewing nights. I think there's something to be said for that on the ground, just hammering it out, showing people what they're missing, essentially. So I have some very compelling ecological news this month, kevin. This isn't too far from your shores. We were just down there about a month ago. Like I said, my wife has an annual birdcation. Typically we'll go through to the point of Cape May and then we'll hang out there for maybe three or four days. But at Cape May both the birds and monarchs usually build up their food stores. They build up their courage at the same time to cross the 20-mile inlet to Delaware. From there they land in Lewis, delaware, which, per some news this month, actually received some education on responsible lighting practices, which is kind of cool. That came from the town's environmental subcommittee. But Lewis is actually undergoing a steady growth in the last 10 years, which I'm sure you know, kevin. You've seen this all around you.

Bill McGeeney: 29:12

Lewis is abutted by parks, wildlife spaces on both sides. Cape on low, open to the South, sits as kind of storm buffer and preserve for nearby Rehoboth Beach. Inside those buffers, including further down the shore through Bethany Beach, are freshwater tidal wetland swales for which Delaware has actually lost over half of that in the 250 years since becoming a state Building development in 2019 continued to fragment these swales, impeding directly on the habitat of what is known as the Bethany Beach Firefly. The Firefly lives notably in 20 miles of the Delaware coast, but also extends its habitat as far down as Chincoteague, virginia. Not only is their habitat being drained and fragmented, but, of course, direct lights from high-intensity LEDs are not helping the mating process much.

Bill McGeeney: 30:02

Xerces, the insect conservation organization, of whom we actually obtained our new pollinator garden from, sounded the alarm back in 2019, asking the US Fish and Wildlife to review their findings and list the firefly as endangered. As of the recording of the show, we are in a 60-day period where open comments are being had, and the US Fish and Wildlife has actually made its proposal to list the firefly as endangered In 2021,. The research paper in PLOS One identified 17 additional firefly species that may be threatened with extinction. For you at home, who needs a refreshment of firefly life cycles? Fireflies spend upwards of two years as the voracious good guy predator in the larval stage, and then they emerge in warm weather to begin looking for partners.

Bill McGeeney: 30:52

Light pollution, pesticides, irresponsible development and now climate change, then coastal flooding or extended dry spells also play a role in curtailing firefly habitat and procreation. Obtaining that designation from US Fish and Wildlife, I would think, would bea credible way to putting in protections against some irresponsible development or lesser thought out development. But unfortunately the firefly sits in a highly desirable area. Frank, have you seen circumstances like this with other ecological issues?

Frank Turina: 31:24

Yeah, you know, I mean, this type of thing does come up fairly regularly, you know, I think, especially with some species that are already stressed and already at risk of extinction, the light pollution just adds another stressor, right, so you're, you're sort of building up these stressors and whereas one thing might not be the the final straw, when you combine all these things together you have that you reach this threshold where you know extinction is a real possibility and action needs to be taken.

Bill McGeeney: 32:01

Yeah. Have you seen any areas where species have been listed on a threatened list or endangered list, and what would happen if the firefly is set on one of those lists?

Frank Turina: 32:14

Yeah, I think that the type of analysis that you have to do for any development or in terms of an environmental impact statement really increases the threshold for getting that done. It makes it much more difficult. There's a whole Section 7, they call it a Section 7 consultation that you have to do with the Fish and Wildlife Service If what you're planning on doing would have a detrimental impact on an endangered species. There's another level of review, called a biological opinion, that needs to be completed to make sure that there's no potential harm to the species. So the main thing that it does is it creates some more hoops that developers have to jump through to ensure that their development isn't going to negatively impact that species.

Bill McGeeney: 33:10

It definitely raises the bar, I expect that to be a hot button issue, probably in that part of the world.

Frank Turina: 33:16

Yeah, I mean there's so many examples of that, where the classic, I guess, is the snail darter species, the fish that was preventing a dam being built in Tennessee. I think it was in Tennessee with the Tennessee Valley Authority and that was a huge issue in the early days of the Threatened and Dangerous Species Act huge issue in the early days of the Threatened Endangered Species Act. And so it makes it very difficult, for if you're going to be affecting the habitat critical habitat or taking an endangered species through a development, it makes it very difficult to get through that process. There was another case in right here in Colorado A dam that was proposed out southwest of Denver called Two Forks. There was a butterfly that was endangered there that was discovered and that was the main issue that EPA relied on in denying the permit for the dam. It was a big issue.

Frank Turina: 34:20

So threatened endangered species are a major obstacle for development. That's why there's so much pushback against adding new species to the list, because it does really make it more. It's not to say you can't develop in a critical habitat or you can't have an effect on threatened endangered species. A critical habitat or you can't have an effect on endangered, threatened endangered species projects get built all the time that have those effects. But there's it's. It's a very for environmentalists or opponents to a proposal, having in a threatened, endangered species that could be affected is a big win. So it's a big, important tool for preventing or objecting to development.

Bill McGeeney: 35:03

That sounds like a lot more work. Do you know of any success cases where development has actually been able to come in and not negatively impact a creature?

Frank Turina: 35:13

Oh, yeah, they do. That's typically the way developers get around it or deal with it, right? Is they implement a ton of mitigation factors. So if you know the study or biological opinion or the study comes out and shows that you know the five acres of critical habitat is going to be taken from threatened and endangered species, they'll propose creating five acres of habitat or 10 acres of habitat, right? So they are always trying to find ways to mitigate the effects of of their action on the on the species.

Frank Turina: 35:50

So typically the way, the only way that you know if there's a take or or a critical habitat loss, you have to do that type of mitigation to get the proposal through. And so most of the time when the TSA comes into play, the way it's addressed is through these mitigation factors, and they can be, you know, whatever would be beneficial to the species and reduce the impact that species may have happened to that species is what the developers will try to do. So just move them essentially is not out of the question. Those types of things have been done. But really just trying to sort of acknowledge the fact that there's this impact and that what you're going to do to mitigate that impact is going to offset the effects that your proposal is going to have.

Bill McGeeney: 36:54

Oh man, well, also in the ecological space. I was going to talk about this, then I decided probably should, given it's already in the news. Publishing date's actually for December in this article. But what if I were to tell you that artificial light at night raises your anxiety? Well, a study from the Science of Total Environment looked at zebrafish in three settings white LED at 4500 Kelvin, a monochromatic light wavelength or a controlled darkness for nine nights. And light almost certainly did raise the anxiety levels or at least that's how I'm interpreting this for these zebrafish. Artificial light at night generally caused the fish to swim less and huddle together with the most detrimental impact arising from the shortest wavelengths. And get this the whole study. The study found that the trend of anxiety continued into the offspring, and offspring from mothers whom were exposed to light exhibited similar stress behavior despite not being exposed to the light themselves.

Bill McGeeney: 37:58

So some quick ones here. From a study in ecological indicators, we find that Central European wild boar is avoidant of artificial light at night, but not noise pollution. From another study, from environmental pollution, another study confirms that artificial light, in this case dim lighting, negatively affected the Indian house crow's ability to think. Dim lighting negatively affected the Indian house crow's ability to think. It also lowered their melatonin levels. The researchers noted a link between melatonin and the ability for the birds to grow new brain cells by apparently doping a parallel experimental group with extra melatonin, which appeared to ward off some of the negative effects of artificial light at night. And then another study identified how artificial light is able to quickly affect lake culture from the Journal of Plankton. Research with similar results to a study back in the summer found that artificial light changed the position of zooplankton in the depth of the water, which essentially moved them out of safe depths into lit areas. And that's when perch rose up to snatch them, significantly decreasing the zooplankton population and decreasing the overall population physical size because the plankton were being selective when they came up and snatched them. Study illustrated that size selection can be used in light-polluted areas.

Bill McGeeney: 39:19

The remaining articles in this month's ecology were sent out with this month's newsletter. So, as a reminder, if you're not already subscribed to newsletter, do sign up. So we have a couple more articles left for today. But before we get to those, I want to give my great group of guests today a little chance to talk about what's coming down the pipe. Frank, where can people learn more about what you do. You have a blog out there. I know you teach. You do a whole bunch of things. Where can people learn more.

Frank Turina: 39:45

So my website is the Night Sky Resource Center and it's kind of where I post blogs and interesting articles ruminate on my thoughts on light pollution. Lately I've kind of gone down this rabbit hole on my newest blog post on curiosity and when I was in Chile last year we went to some find out what these little points of light are in the sky. Right, and it's not that there was when we first started looking at those types of things that there was any tangible started looking at those types of things that there was any tangible objective benefit to that other than the fact that we just wanted to know. Right, we just wanted to know what those things were. So we invest all this energy and resources into these instruments and these efforts to just understand what's up there, right?

Frank Turina: 40:58

So that idea of, like the night sky, generating this sense of curiosity has been, like I said, a little bit of a rabbit hole for me the last year. And just looking at you know the, the neurological and the biological aspects of of curiosity and you know when we curiosity is tied to our dopamine system. So when we satisfy our curiosity we get a dopamine rush. So we're hardwired basically to answer questions like that and I think with 80% of the population that doesn't have access to that source of awe and inspiration and curiosity, to me that's one of the true costs of light pollution. For millennia, the night sky has been the spark. It sparked our curiosity, it made us want to go to the moon, it made us want to write music and create great literature, and all of that was inspired by just wondering what's up there. And so I'm writing a blog about kind of exploring that idea of you know, the connection between curiosity and the night sky and that loss when we lose our access to the night sky.

Bill McGeeney: 42:17

Frank, it's so interesting you mentioned about the music because I feel like everyone or not everyone, but many astronomers or many astronomers or many people who do amateur astronomy they also have a deep passion for playing music and for making music and there seems to be a connection there.

Frank Turina: 42:35

Yeah, that's true. True, I think you know there have been great composers who have used the night sky and the planets you know the whole planets and and other pieces of work that are tied to that understanding of of the planets and the night sky, and and so there is this, but I think there's also I'm not necessarily a musician, but I understand that there's a sense of creation and curiosity. And what if I play this riff, then that riff, then we bring in this instrument. Like there's that sense of curiosity that underlies the creation of music, I think too. And so I think there is like a connection between you know, understanding being into the night sky and being curious of the things you're seeing up there and also being sort of that curiosity that underlines the creation of music.

Bill McGeeney: 43:33

And Frank, we can learn more about this new great blog post you have over at Night Sky Resource Center.

Kevin Beare: 43:39

Yes.

Bill McGeeney: 43:42

Is it nightskyresource centercom? Yes, okay, perfect, kevin. Moving over to you man, do you have any special things you're doing down there in cape may or any special trips you're doing? I know you do. You are, I know you said you you didn't have much experience with social media, but you're like a tiktok master man, like you are.

Kevin Beare: 43:57

You've got this thing figured out I, I'm working on that and again, again I'm I'm work in progress. So you know, you can teach all old dogs new tricks, I suppose you know. It's like you know, with the Aurora just recently, I had said to mom this is I think we'd like you know to maybe plan a trip up to Fairbanks, but now that we've had this amazing experience here, I think I'm actually jumping ship and we might be going up to my mom's 84. We went to Iceland back in 2019. We did the whole ring road. It was beautiful country, but I'm looking at Lapland right now.

Kevin Beare: 44:31

I also have a follower that is a retired Delta Airlines pilot and so he's a big EAA guy and you know that's the Experimental Aircraft Association. They have the national fly in. So I, you know, two days ago I asked Joe. I said hey, joe. I said, when you're up at Oshkosh this past year, did you see anybody with a telescope? And he knows what I do, he's one of my followers. He said, no, kevin. No, kevin, I haven't seen that, but I think you should. So I'm actually looking into getting up to Oshkosh this summer to be able to, you know, put you know keep me asked doing a little bit of a night time up at Oshkosh doing your thing up there.

Bill McGeeney: 45:08

That that'll be a fun time.

Kevin Beare: 45:10

Yeah, and doing solar observations near the, maybe the NASA pavilion I do have some contacts at NASA, you know that, you know I think we might have a little influence, but you know. And then going back to the campsites you know, for you know the campers, you know at the night sky. So again, it's a perfect venue for me. I'm looking forward to expanding and again just sharing the beauty and the darkness. And, and real quickly, I had the best episode or the best experience that I had this summer. I was on the boardwalk and it was about quarter of 11 at night and a family came up to me and she introduced herself. She said I was here last year with my husband and my daughter, ava, who's now seven, and she said to me that on their way down the Cape May, it's been a year that they were in Cape May, so this is the crazy influence. Their daughter, ava, asked her mom and dad if the guy with the telescope would be out.

Bill McGeeney: 45:57

Yeah.

Kevin Beare: 45:58

People ask me all the time. It's like, why are you here? And you know I share that story, and like, oh, okay, it's like, you know, my grandmother, hannah, introduced me, in fact Hannah's I. I've named my telescopes. Hannah is my first one, you know, because she shared the you know, my first meteor shower with me. So to hear a story of Ava, and last night hearing the story of Gavin, and you know these children that you know are are just, you know, these children that you know are just, you know, wanting to, you know, absorb more information about the night sky, but you know to hear that you know this, you know, six-year-old, you know girl remembered it a year later. You know about the guy with the telescope and you know we met up. So, again, it's really a beautiful. I'm humbled, I'm so happy that you know people are, you know, appreciative of what I'm trying to share.

Bill McGeeney: 46:39

That is more than words right there. That is great.

Kevin Beare: 46:43

Yes, it's priceless. Yes, thank you.

Bill McGeeney: 46:45

So people can find you out there on the Instagram reels and the TikTok universe. Keep me astro right.

Kevin Beare: 46:53

Keep me astro. And again, I'm still learning about Facebook and there's a lot of people that you don't need a lot of.

Kevin Beare: 46:59

Facebook yeah again I don't need a lot, I'll get the website up. Yeah, you know, I again I'm. I've never been on it, but anyway I'm looking forward to being able to share more with a YouTube channel and, you know, website to be able to share. And I appreciate I've learned so much today from all of you. And again this afternoon, before I was coming over here, I was, I had breakfast and a lady's like are you writing down a poem or are you a music writer? I'm like no, I'm, you know, I'm just reading over and doing notes for a blog today about light pollution, and she's from Florida. She's oh, we've got rules for, you know, light pollution, because we have turtles that come up on the beach. So again, it was great to be able to hear you know.

Bill McGeeney: 47:39

Thank you for joining again today, kevin, and you can be found where in Cape May.

Kevin Beare: 47:44

Again, the best way is just follow me on Cape May Astro and you know I usually, you know, try to let people know where I'm going to be, you know, and doing live, you know quick broadcast to say that. You know here I am. So again and again, a lot of it depends on you know what's out in the night sky. Again, I tried downtown, but I'm going to go back out to the Bay tonight to try to, you know, scope out the end of the comet once again.

Bill McGeeney: 48:04

You need to have a beacon for you so that way, wherever you are, people can find it.

Kevin Beare: 48:10

Yeah, yeah, the back channel, yeah yeah.

Bill McGeeney: 48:14

Maybe you can shoot out a light and that's what they'll know. No, yeah, yeah, we're not advocating. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, mike, where can people learn about all the cool things you do? And, yeah, how best do you want to plug yourself?

Michael Rymer: 48:29

Well, I don't do anything cool, so I would go to darkskyorg to learn about what we do. That's cool. It's the advocates like Frank and Kevin here that are doing the cool stuff. So I'm just an administrator Traveling around all the West. That's for me, that's for my soul.

Bill McGeeney: 48:46

No, I mean.

Michael Rymer: 48:47

I have an Instagram. It's not anything that I would encourage people to look at, but definitely follow Dark Sky International on Instagram and Facebook. We're trying to get the TikTok thing going too, I believe, because we're always putting out great content, especially news and updates about the organization itself, especially newly certified dark sky places throughout the world and, like I said before, we have multiples each month coming through. So that list is continually growing and we're always excited to announce those places and bring those to the forefront for more people to kind of hear and learn about and hopefully, travel to.

Bill McGeeney: 49:26

Well, you guys had launched a book club. Yes, this is pretty interesting. The first book was Night Magic Adventures Among Glowworms, Moongardens and Other Marvels of the Dark by Leanne Henyon, who I'm assuming is based in North Carolina, and Other Marvels of the Dark by Leanne Henyon, who I'm assuming is based in North Carolina. I actually reached out to her to see if she wanted to come on the show, but she said that they had so much damage that unfortunately there was no way she could do it. So my best to her and her family and everyone there that they're able to recover relatively smoothly. But why don't you tell us about the book club?

Michael Rymer: 49:58

So I haven't had too much to do with this book club. That comes from our awesome engagement manager, chris peters, and he's he's been doing a lot to prepare for under one sky, you know. And then, as soon as under one sky ends even even before that, you know we're already starting to plan for international dark sky week, which happens in the spring. So you know, chris and everybody on that team has been doing a lot of great things.

Michael Rymer: 50:24

And I think the book club idea is something that I've spoken with Betty Maya, my good friend about and who's been on the show before, kind of bouncing around an idea like that, like wouldn't it be cool if we did it? And I'm glad we're executing it now because it's great to bring people together in a just another way, you know, to read about why the importance of dark skies is. You know, it is such a passionate thing for us and being able to read a book and be like, yes, this resonated with me. I want other people to read it, I can tell you about it. So that's, that's the philosophy behind this thing. I really hope that we can get the interest and, from what I understand, we have had a lot of people interested in doing this, so that's going to just carry into the future as another way to engage.

Bill McGeeney: 51:09

Yeah, I love it. Henyon actually has been in and she's had plenty of articles in the last two months in the news. So that's why I featured Henyon here, because she released a teaser about the book in Raffles Oscura this past month. In that article she wrote about a special bioluminescent mushroom called the Foxfire not to be confused with Firefox, which is a web browser. Here she brings us the magic of a little mushroom which at one time apparently served many uses for man, including path illumination, and it's a very insightful read which I recommend you at home. Hop over to her website and click on this article link.

Bill McGeeney: 51:46

It has me very excited to read Henyon's book, if only for little Easter eggs like this the fact that and I never, never, ever thought about this that pirates apparently didn't wear patches over the eye because they only had one eye. No, it was because they want to keep an eye dark, adaptive for going below deck, which makes so much more sense. Yep, man, that's interesting little nuggets there. So there you go, you got a little plug for your book club, and you know it was in the news this month too.

Michael Rymer: 52:20

And Leanne is, of course, one of the speakers for Under One Sky, so you know, go back and watch those recordings and check her out as she gives our keynote.

Bill McGeeney: 52:28

That's awesome, that's great. All right, so we've got close things out here with some new designations Town of Panoia Panoia, I guess that's how you say it. You guys are all from Colorado. How do I say Pagoda? Am I saying it right? Paonia.

Michael Rymer: 52:41

Paonia, paonia.

Bill McGeeney: 52:43

Pagoda, whatever it is, it's now an international dark sky community. Congratulations to them. If you recall, we mentioned that 2.5 acres of the Oregon I guess outback came into the international dark sky sanctuary. Well, they're not stopping there. A coalition of conservation organizations, businesses, ranchers, tribes and tourism stakeholders, under the general umbrella of the Oregon Outback Dark Sky Network, are working towards a further expansion to create the Dark Sky Sanctuary, to increase it by threefold over the next handful of years. That is quite astounding. If that happens, big deal, yeah. Well, I want to thank you at home for joining us today. I want to thank my guests. Thank you, kevin, thank you michael, and thank you, frank for joining me today. It's always a blast to have familiar faces here, frank. It's always my honor. It's fun to have you back, mike. Thanks so much, and Kevin, I can't wait to come down to Cape May. You got me stoked. Come down to Cape May and look at those telescopes.

Michael Rymer: 53:46

Next time we do a birdcation if I'm allowed out after 8 pm, I will definitely come over.

Frank Turina: 53:55

Thanks, bill. I appreciate all the work you do too.

Kevin Beare: 53:57

Yes thank you, bill, thank you very much.

Bill McGeeney: 54:05

Well, as a reminder, Light Pollution News is recorded toward the end of each month. This month we record the show on October 20th. You can find all of the details included in today's show over at lightpollutionnewscom. If you have any thoughts or questions or just want to say hi, you can simply text us via the link in the show notes or email us at bill at lightpollutioncom. Signing off. I'm your host, Bill McGinney. Thank you for listening and remember to only shine the light where it's needed.