
Saving Birds During the Tribute in Light - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/opinion/9-11-tribute-in-light-birds.html
======
Scaevolus
The birds are opportunistically eating the insects that cluster in the bright
light beam. Warblers, like many species of birds, are insectivores.

Luxor Palace in Las Vegas has a similar sky beam, which has _huge_ numbers of
bats and birds feasting every night:
[https://youtu.be/5_lGN6rrU1E?t=16](https://youtu.be/5_lGN6rrU1E?t=16)
[https://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Las-Vegas-Luxor-s-
shini...](https://www.sfgate.com/green/article/Las-Vegas-Luxor-s-shining-
light-guides-bats-2920575.php)

------
tomatotomato37
I don't really see how this is a problem worth addressing. The lights are
literally only on for one day of the year, are drenched in light pollution
from the rest of the city, and have a killcount lower than my neighbor's cat,
and under one thousandth of the humans killed during the attack this memorial
is built to honor. Honestly it seems almost disrespectful making such an issue
out of this.

------
joewee
The solution? Turn off the lights. Didn’t seem very innovative. Why not use
drones that look like birds of prey to circle the lights?

The innovation seems to be the analysis of weather data to identify the
presence of birds, so someone knows when to turn off the lights.

~~~
phyzome
Why does it need to be innovative? Sounds like it's working as is.

It's not clear that they're actually using radar to detect the birds for live
monitoring. Here's what the article says:

« So, how to avoid disaster? New York City Audubon has positioned trained
volunteers armed with binoculars on the roof of a parking garage in Battery
Park City, at the base of the tribute, to monitor aggregations of birds in the
tribute light beams. If densities exceed more than 1,000 birds or if a bird is
found dead, the lights are shut down to allow the birds to disperse. »

~~~
joewee
You’re right, they aren’t using it in real time, they are using people looking
up at the sky to make a gut determination as to when there are “too many”
birds.

I expected there to be innovation because based on the article, light
pollution of this sort is a known issue for birds. Not ever source of this
type of pollution will be able to have volunteers stand around looking at the
sky. This seems like a problem that needs a automated solution to scale.

~~~
dogecoinbase
_This seems like a problem that needs a automated solution to scale._

How many more giant light beams are they planning on putting up?

