FAA Agrees to Study Lighting Requirements for Bird-Killing Towers

Cellphone towers. Photo: American Bird Conservancy

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced plans to conduct a study that will examine whether steady-burning sidelights on tall communications towers, which attract birds and cause them to collide with the towers during night migration, can be safely eliminated without endangering air traffic. Unlike many waterfowl and birds of prey, most songbirds migrate during the night, with up to several billion birds having to navigate a landscape littered with as many as 100,000 lighted towers each spring and fall. American Bird Conservancy and its conservation partners have been working together with the communications industry in seeking this important study, which will help determine whether the safety of pilots can be maintained while also reducing the impact of lights on migrating birds.

Currently, the Federal Communications Commission is engaged in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that is examining “the extent of any effect of communications towers on migratory birds.” The Notice seeks to examine a number of issues in connection with avian-tower impacts, including tower lighting.

FAA guidelines on towers over 200 feet tall, currently require towers utilizing red or dual-type lighting systems to use steady-burning sidelights mounted at various intermediate levels depending on the height of the tower. These requirements date back more than three decades, and may no longer be applicable based on current lighting technology. It has also since been shown that blinking lights cause far fewer bird deaths. It I also noteworthy that traffic signals on major roads often have white strobes in addition to red lights to notify drivers, indicating that many motor vehicle departments consider strobe lights to be more obvious to people than steady lights.

The FAA will study the difference to pilots of steady-burning lights compared to blinking lights, and of red lights compared to white lights, and whether adequate safety is maintained if side marker lights are extinguished or operated at a reduced flash rate. This study will begin in early 2009, with a report and recommendations expected to be made public by the end of the year.

“Should the FAA determine the use of side-mounted steady red lights can be eliminated for communications towers without harm to air safety, American Bird Conservancy will push for the FAA to amend their guidelines to reduce avian fatalities while still preserving air safety,” said Darin Schroeder, American Bird Conservancy’s Vice President of Conservation Advocacy.