How To Make Broadcast Towers More Bird-Friendly: Turn Off Some Lights

"We were able to reduce the numbers of bird fatalities on communications towers by simply extinguishing those nonflashing lights," she says. "Those fatalities were reduced by as much as 70 percent."  Exactly why isn't yet clear, but she has a theory.  "Some research has documented that when birds are exposed to long wavelengths of light such as red or white that it actually interferes with their ability to use magnetic fields for navigation," Gehring says.  She says that's especially true on cloudy nights when birds can't navigate by the stars. The towers' steady red lights seem to confuse them. Flashing red lights don't.  In 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration changed regulations on new towers, requiring that they all be built with only flashing lights.  Gehring, who now works for the Federal Communications Commission, spends much of her time contacting people who run towers built before 2015 and encouraging them to switch to blinking lights.