A CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE: Hopeful Thoughts on ZooLights and ZooMission?

Writing as Executive Director of The Zoological Lighting Institute, I find myself sometimes taking for granted the general appreciation of the animal welfare and wildlife conservation issues that we have organized ourselves to address. Natural light is a fundamental necessity for living things, whether we are speaking about day or night in any season. My mind and experience remind me that somehow this thought has become radical in these days of political confusion and disingenuous ideologies, and yet I can’t help but feel that the general appreciation of light’s importance is well known and (to reclaim the words of Trump), ‘everybody knows it’.

There is no life without light, whether starlight, moonlight or the bright radiance of the sun. But because light is the proposition of a relationship cast in words, as every physical phenomena is, ‘more’ light is not necessarily better. Temperature offers a much better analogy than say fuel, when thinking about light. Natural light is about ranges and cycles, winters and summers in which too much light is as horrible as too little. Though it may very well be that virtual life can pretend that the seasons are only reflected in holiday decorations, the physical world is far richer than the tweets of our discontent. And thankfully, though people keep degrading the world about them, our nurturing environment is still there.

So now, as I walk through the well meaning communities of aquariums and zoos around the world, with whom we are dedicated to partnering with and serving, I can’t help but ask what is going on with Zoo Lights events (there are many) and indeed, lighting in general at such otherwise wonderful facilities. This article is not about the zoo as such, but about how all of us (in and out of the zoo community) deal with a challenge that far too many people have ignored or haven't considered.

At a surface level I get it, people lust to triumph over childhood memories in the candy-cane sparkle of a simple but illusionary life. People flock to see LED outlines of exotic animals in cold bitter nights when, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to get them to visit the real thing in comfort. And we tell ourselves falsehoods that we need lighting products for security and safety when these aspirations are not dependent on products from a store but something more; our behaviors and beliefs. But I think a point is worth underscoring.

More people come into a zoo during these Holiday events to see a string of LED lights shaped vaguely like a penguin, than they do to see a living penguin no less than a stone's throw away at any other time of year. Unfortunately this is a complicating fact that colors any assessment of whether or not such events are in the best interest of their sponsors and public. Money after all, funds necessary programs.

Summarily denying such genuinely wonderful institutions a good business opportunity would be foolish, if the work contributes to building community through concern for animal life and supporting the viability of those communities in promoting wildlife conservation. But I think that it is entirely appropriate to ask vehemently how these events ought to be done if they are to support, rather than to negate that very mission. 

Remember, light pollution degrades habitat and kills wildlife. Natural light conditions the physiology, sensory ecology and interactions of animal life. When artificial lighting restricts natural light, and it always does, individual animals and ecosystems suffer. Sickness befalls physiology and their bodies weaken. The senses are blinded (by added light or its subtraction), and living becomes a challenge. Timings and spacings are confused, changing vital relationships that had been determined in the course of evolution and still govern fitness. So then, what are the value of Zoo Lights, and what indeed do these events celebrate?

Perhaps it is good to remember that aquariums and zoos are not spaces of ‘nature’, but rather a kind of tool. An architectural typology that people and communities don’t seem to be able to do without. Every culture on the planet has always had some form of exotic animal holding, whether this comes out of an illegal wildlife trade, an opportunity of privilege or desperate attempt at misguided personal entertainments. Regulated facilities, formal aquariums and zoos, can aspire to practices in service to the health, safety and welfare of the public in ways that these other (and quite real) activities simply cannot. Deplete environments of wildlife, or bait the bear on a tricycle, and actual people will suffer real and dire consequences. So what do we do about Zoo Lights?

If we think about light pollution in the environment carefully, we can see that it generally doesn’t come from holiday lighting. The lighting (radiation) that we are told that we ‘need’ is generally the culprit. The radiation produced to light parking lots or roads; now that’s bad. The radiation produced by (false sense of) security lights; now that’s bad. The radiation emitted for no other reason than to indicate that people are occupying or working in a building when there is no one there; that is bad. I could go on, but for now, let’s recognize that in situ artificial night lighting is a terrible environmental problem that needs to be dealt with by aquariums and zoos as these facilities are the heart of community environmental awareness. Holiday lighting is a secondary problem an order of magnitude lower than the ‘fake’ need that promotes harmful products.

So then, what do we do about Zoo Lights?

At ZLI, our mission is to support scientific research in photobiology, for animal welfare and wildlife conservation. It starts with the science, but recognizes that there are ex-situ (labs, aquariums or zoos for example), and in-situ (located in communities or environments) aspects to this mission. Ecological science is challenging, as field work is subject to many variables and logistical challenges. Ex-situ studies have their challenges as well, but they have the benefit of limiting these variables so that relationships in the world outside can be better understood. 

A key value of ZLI’s work is that we are able to support studies in aquariums and zoos to support better decision making regarding in-situ environments. Study the effects of altered lighting regimes upon animals within aquariums and zoos, and you can improve animal welfare and support meaningful conservation programs and policies. Research is necessary to inform sensible policies. Aquariums and zoos are vital seats of research and advocacy, and indeed wildlife conservation will never succeed without their support.

So then, what do we do about Zoo Lights? 

Abandon them in the interest of local environmental quality, or use them to study impacts of lighting on animal welfare and ecological viability? Do we study the effects of relatively minimal (in comparison) lighting upon the animals in our care? Do we acknowledge and utilize the effects of holiday lighting on managed ex-situ collections in compliance with our missions, promoting the knowledge thus gained for community benefit? ZLI can guide proper measurements in this regard, but it is a real question to which a courageous answer has real implications for mission related achievements in wildlife conservation and public education. There are positive sides to the challenges of Holiday Lights, whether one chooses to back away from what seem to be ill-gotten gains or to use the funding to change a bigger challenge. 

Before answering too quickly, remember that Holiday Lighting has been sacrificed for better business practices before. Even the name ‘Holiday Lights’ softens the insensitively named ‘Christmas Lights’ (actually as insensitive to Christmas as much as to those who don’t celebrate it, but that is a point for another day), which itself has threads of origin in many elements unrelated to the present use of them. But not so long ago, in the ‘Black Christmas/Christmas Sacrifice' protests of 1963, socially minded persons challenged inequality by turning off holiday lights in North Carolina.

As we are very comfortable in identifying biodiversity loss mitigation with social justice challenges along with the United Nations (thus the PhotoDiversity Film Festival <<photodiversity.org>>), it is good to remember that quality of life sentiments can be hurtful despite the best of intentions. Perhaps turning off Zoo Light celebrations is not such a bad idea, if the funding that they bring leads to an untenable future, whether in terms of lost public support for the rest of the year or through an incompatibility with missions to provide entertainment in support of animal welfare and wildlife conservation. It is an easy argument to make.

Justify funding through alignment with mission, and better things will come.

Funding and good public will come from a pro-active heads-on approach, as any marketing guru will tell you. Secrecy never succeeds, particularly when the issues to be addressed are directly related to an organization’s mission. Make no mistake, the degradation of habitat due to artificial light is no closeted issue and it will become generally well known and appreciated. The effects of artificial night lighting on animals and ecosystems is not simply a concern of our little charity, but have been acknowledged by major universities, media outlets (such as CNN and the BBC) and community advocates (the International Dark-sky Association for example) as well as cultural groups (which lament lost traditional relationships to the natural environment). Among all of these groups, ZLI has a unique and sympathetic perspective to aquariums and zoos as AZA, ZAA and JAZA Conservation Partners. 

When ZLI urges a proactive response to the ecological and biological lighting challenge in aquariums and zoos, it does so as a friend giving hard advice. The ‘sciencing' of animal welfare and wildlife conservation can only be accomplished through data driven measurements. This indeed is our suggestion. If Zoo Lights can’t be abandoned (and they can be), it is necessary to measure the impacts of such lighting on the health and welfare of animals in the collection and allow this knowledge to impact development policies. The same can be said for any night time operations in a zoo or aquarium of course. Zoo Lights are only one dramatic example of a broader issue, one that puts zoos in a precarious position. 

Natural light is as important as water for public health safety and welfare. I will end on a slightly ominous note, hoping that the faith and hope of the season can guide us all to a good place. Aquariums and zoos do not exist in isolation, but are community facilities. When local or regional governments invite the installation of bright new night lighting in our communities, those bluish white LEDs that we all hate and know to be harmful, they do a disservice to their publics as much as the disservice and failures that happened through inadequate attention to water quality in Flint. 

The consequences of messing with the water supply in Michigan for short term gain and financial opportunism, were and remain disastrous to individuals, the community they comprise and the political figures responsible for them. We are at a similar juncture with regard to lighting, frankly of ‘Silent Spring’ proportions, with consequences no less dire particularly through the object of our shared mission, animals and the ecosystems that they comprise.

Pay attention to the extended consequences and implications of Zoo Lights because they are related to a present and looming animal welfare and wildlife conservation challenge. Address this challenge by either changing Zoo Lights to a more mission centric event, or, keep it and measure its impacts so that some good can come out of it.

And remember too... no one is saying that holiday lights are bad... indeed lighting candles and such at night are a fundamental part of human experience. But to see them and appreciate their preciousness and importance... and this point speaks to culture... we need to recover natural nocturnal light. Otherwise, such lights become just one more plastic decoration in a devalued and limited world. Too much lighting obscures the guiding direction of any one star.

Light the parole, light the candles, string the Christmas tree in the home. But these lights shine most brightly under what we might justly call a guiding starlight. For 'our' zoos... measure the impacts so that better development strategies and policies can be drafted and then watch real action be taken that preserves wildlife. Artificial lighting at night has proved to be a cultural and ecological disaster… and ‘everybody knows it’.

What will you do about Zoo Lights?

www.zoolighting.org