Kōke‘e Air Force Station Monitoring

Before and after photographs of same area showing new lighting bollards installed as part of light minimization protocols after the fallout event.

Working with USAF 611th CES Natural Resources staff, and through funding issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, we conduct monitoring at an air force facility in the north west of Kaua’i.  After a large fallout event of endangered ‘a’o (Newell’s Shearwater) and ‘ua‘u (Hawaiian Petrel) in 2015, the facility carried out an extensive reduction of their facility lighting.

Since then, our work at the facility has involved providing advice on light minimization actions and carrying out annual seabird monitoring to assess the on-going effectiveness of the new facility lighting protocol.  Monitoring involves multiple techniques including acoustic sensors, remote cameras and nocturnal surveys.  The reduction in facility lighting has led to a dramatic reduction in the number of birds grounded at the facility due to light attraction – from 131 over the course of a few days in 2015, to only 4 confirmed birds in the last ten years.

To find out more about this work, you can read the following paper published in the journal Pacific Science. - view