Lights Out Texas –
Spring 2021 Recap

Yellow Warbler

Lights Out Texas is a campaign of education, awareness, and action that focuses on turning out lights at night during the spring and fall migrations to help protect the billions of migratory birds that fly over Texas annually. The goal of Lights Out Texas is to reduce migratory bird mortality by increasing statewide participation at the business, local official, municipal, and community levels, as well as collecting and reporting data.

This effort was originally launched in 2017 by Houston Audubon and American National Insurance Company following a major bird collision event involving 400 birds in Galveston. Right around this time, Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed their BirdCast migration forecast maps using historical radar data. Later, Lights Out Texas took hold in Dallas-Fort Worth, led by Texas Conservation Alliance, The Perot Museum of Nature and Science, and Dallas Zoo with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Colorado State University supporting efforts and Texan by Nature helping with outreach in Fall 2020. In 2021, Texan by Nature (TxN) collaborated with these leading organizations to facilitate Lights Out Texas at the statewide level in order to standardize the approach to messaging, communication, and volunteer efforts across all Texas organizations.

As fall bird migration quickly approaches, please save the date for going lights out at night:

  • Full Fall Migration Period: August 15 – November 30
  • Critical Peak Migration Period: September 5 – October 29

We hope you will join us in turning out lights at night from 11 pm to 6 am throughout fall migration and celebrate the success the success from spring bird migration below.

Spring 2021 Lights Out Texas Campaign by the Numbers

  • Social media and outreach toolkits were distributed to 100+ conservation organizations across Texas.
  • Outreach to media outlets resulted in 62 earned media placements receiving 195,581,331 impressions.
  • 501 earned social media posts reached 7,557,405 accounts, receiving 112,552 likes/reactions and 38,786 shares.
  • Through email outreach efforts, 800+ businesses operating in Texas were targeted with Lights Out Texas messaging and 36 businesses confirmed participation in turning out lights at night for migrating birds.
  • Seven cities and one county made proclamations. (View the list below)
  • Individuals, municipalities, and businesses made 216 Lights Out Texas pledges through Texas Conservation Alliance’s Lights Out for Wildlife Certification, and an additional 301 pledges were made with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
  • Seven organizations conducted on-the-ground volunteer efforts to understand bird-building collisions, 173 people contributed 1,203 volunteer hours and documented 382 bird casualties.

Media Highlights

Check out these social media posts, quotes, and articles featuring Lights Out Texas from this past spring.

Laura Bush

“Laura Bush: Texans, Turn Out the Lights at Night to Help Migrating Birds”, was featured in the Dallas Morning News.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Laura Bush (@laurawbush)

Texas Businesses

Companies across Texas, like Phillips66, Marathon Petroleum, American Campus Communities, Hibernia Resources, and many others got involved by turning out their lights at night during migration season. Read more about American Campus Communities’ involvement in Lights Out Texas in this blog post.

Hibernia Resources is excited to participate in this program and it further proves that common sense collaboration works with minimal effort on both sides,” said Embry Canterbury, CEO, Hibernia Resources.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Phillips 66 (@phillips66co)

Conservation Organizations

Conservation organizations across Texas conducted volunteer efforts in conjunction with Lights Out Texas to better understand bird-building collisions and bird-migration dynamics. Texas A&M University, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Oklahoma State University, Texan by Nature, Houston Audubon, Texas Conservation Alliance, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, and Travis Audubon collaborated to develop standardized volunteer guides and training videos to guide statewide efforts.

It’s not often you can make a positive difference in the world by simply flipping a switch, but combined with the efforts of the other participants, that’s exactly what we’re going to do,”said Linda Silver, Eugene McDermott Chief Executive Officer of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Al Smith (@alsmithhawaii)

Municipal Proclamations

Seven cities and one county across Texas made Lights Out Texas proclamations:

*These cities made proclamations in Fall 2020 as well.

Thank You!

A special thank you to Heather Prestridge, Curator, Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections, Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology at Texas A&M University for providing support, expertise, and expediting permits and sub permits needed for volunteers to collect specimens and to Tania Homayoun, Ph.D., Texas Nature Trackers Biologist at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for support, expertise, and for creating an iNaturalist project for Lights Out Texas.

A big thank you goes out to the following organizations that made Lights Out Texas possible for the 2021 Spring campaign:

Lights Out Texas Founding and Coordinating Organizations

Lights Out Texas Supporting Organizations

Learn More

Please visit https://birdcast.info/science-to-action/lights-out/ for more information and contact info@texanbynature.org if you are interested in setting up a meeting/presentation to learn more about Lights Out Texas.

 

 

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