Light pollution kills baby sea turtles. Stupid assholes don't care.

Please see my other two posts about endangered sea turtles at Idiots destroy 100 eggs from an endangered leatherback sea turtle. They belong in prison. and at Every human ape has the moral responsibility to do everything possible to save species threatened with extinction.

Palm Beach County, a bit north of where I live near the southeast Florida coast, already bans lights facing the beach during sea turtle hatching season (May 1st to October 31st). They now plan to force everyone within a few miles from the shore to dim their lights. After baby sea turtles hatch they are attracted to the light of the moon over the ocean so they crawl to the sea where they will spend the rest of their lives. Out of 100 eggs there will be only about one sea turtle which will survive to become an adult.

If the baby sea turtles see lights from the human ape species they will crawl inland instead of to the ocean and they will die, all 100 of them. The hotels and condos by the beach now turn off their lights but this hasn't been good enough. There is too much light pollution from miles away so now Palm Beach County and hopefully other counties will put an end to these unnecessary lights. The turtles will then be able to find their way to the ocean and even the human residents will benefit from being able to see many more stars at night.

Of course there are some fucking assholes who don't mind wiping out an entire species so they are not inconvenienced by less light. These subhumans need to be tortured and killed.

The rest of the post is a copy and paste job from a May 28, 2012 Fort Lauderdale, Florida newspaper at Saving sea turtles could mean lowered lights — miles from shore.

Saving sea turtles could mean lowered lights — miles from shore

May 28, 2012|By Andy Reid and Susannah Bryan, Sun Sentinel

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Dimming the lights along the coastline hasn't been enough to save endangered sea turtles, so now plans are afoot to lower the lights at everything from car dealerships to football stadiums miles from shore in Palm Beach County.

The proposed dim zone could stretch all the way to Interstate 95 in some areas and encompass Mizner Park, downtown Boca Raton and several car dealerships along Federal Highway.

Some think it's a worthy adjustment for a good cause. Others think its nuts.

The Maroone Nissan dealership off Federal Highway in Delray Beach keeps its parking lot lights on through dawn, said Christopher McCray, general manager.

"There's no dim switch," he said. "Everyone knows that what keeps the criminals away is keeping the place lit up like a Christmas tree."

Sky glow is a growing problem in Broward County as well, particularly in downtown Fort Lauderdale and Port Everglades, said Richard WhiteCloud, head of Sea Turtle Oversight Protection, a group of volunteers that protect nests in Broward.

"They like to make the skyscrapers look good from I-95," WhiteCloud said. "I understand they want the city to be lit up like the Wizard of Oz and Emerald City, but they don't understand the impact."

Jay Goodart, general sales manager at a Toyota dealership on Federal Highway in Deerfield Beach, said it was nice of people to try to save sea turtles, "but business has got to run."

The bright lights at his lot are meant to protect the safety of customers who prefer to shop at night, Goodart said. "It's also for security, so we don't have people [thieves] crawling around the lot at night."

Efforts to save the hatchlings — which are born to follow the moon to the sea, but instead become disoriented by bright lights and follow them inland to their deaths — have already led to lowered lights on beachfronts. Now environmentalists want cities and businesses to lower the lights as far as three to five miles inland.

Palm Beach County is working with cities to change building codes to require that new buildings have lighting fixtures with targeted beams that limit the spillover glow. The next step would be encouraging retrofits of existing lights shining on large parking lots.

Even under ideal circumstances, the turtles' odds for survival are dismal: Only 1 percent of about 1.3 million born on Palm Beach County's shores each year survive.

Once baby turtles break out of their shells, dig out of the sand and emerge onto the beach, their little bodies have a finite amount of energy left to make the trek across the sand, into the surf and out to sea.

Ideally they hatch at night, which helps them avoid raccoons and other predators. If so, they rely on the light from the night sky bouncing off the water to guide them out to sea.

But too often, the man-made glow to the west lures the turtles in the wrong direction, over dunes and into streets. Turtle monitors sometimes arrive in the morning to see tiny turtle tracks leading from the nest, in the opposite direction of the ocean.

Palm Beach County officials expect it to take years to spread the message and push back the urban glow far enough for turtles to be able to focus on the natural nighttime shine off the water. For public outreach, officials plan to use bus signs, brochures, stickers and even temporary tattoos with the message "Dark Skies Save Sea Turtles' Lives."

"We've gone a long way with dealing with direct light on the beach," said Daniel Bates, county environmental director "But we are still getting [turtle] disorientation because of the sky glow behind it."

New Yorkers Lyn and Bruce Rosensweig, in Boca Raton for a wedding, liked the idea of curbing South Florida's urban glow.

"I think it would be good for the turtles, and the people too," Lyn Rosensweig said. "Who wants to see all those lights?"

In addition to a public awareness campaign, local government could consider offering tax-reduction incentives to businesses that take on the additional expense of retrofitting lights to make them more turtle-friendly, said Jennifer Bistyga, who administers Boca Raton coastal projects.

Businesses that take steps to limit "light trespass" could also be recognized with awards or designations acknowledging their environmentally friendly efforts.

"They are not going to make these changes on their own," Bistyga said. "The bottom line is money."