Dutch Town Uses High-Tech Streetlights To Keep Their Bats Happy 80
Since streetlights disturb bats' internal sensors and rhythms and affect their feeding patterns, inner compasses, and general nocturnal behaviors, the Dutch town of Zuidhoek-Nieuwkoop is taking action. The town is using special streetlights that emit a red color and use a wavelength that doesn't interfere with a bat's internal compass and lets them feed undisturbed. The Next Web reports: The lights [developed by Signify and the University of Wageningen and other NGO's active in conservation], being both beneficial for bats and humans alike, are also proving to be extremely energy saving, and is therefore also a big plus for the environment and the town's carbon footprint. The lights are connected LED lights that can be controlled remotely. This means that if there is one particular neighborhood in need of more or less light, this can be adjusted as needed.
Zuidhoek-Nieuwkoop, due to their specific natural surroundings, is keen on being a sustainable town. The town and its surrounding area are part of the nature-protection network Natura 2000, which protects breeding and nesting areas for rare and threatened species all over Europe.
Zuidhoek-Nieuwkoop, due to their specific natural surroundings, is keen on being a sustainable town. The town and its surrounding area are part of the nature-protection network Natura 2000, which protects breeding and nesting areas for rare and threatened species all over Europe.
Not the town that cancelled it? (Score:1)
Is this a different town than the one where people got annoyed at the red lights, saying they didn't like the color and didn't like how they were 'experimented' on without prior knowledge and thus the red lights were switched out?
Re:Not the town that cancelled it? (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/... [dutchnews.nl]
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Sigh even a people as liberal as the Dutch have a retard belt (commonly referred to as a bible belt in politer company).
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Here in NL, the real "bible belt" party has 2% of the votes, so it's not that bad, but they concentrate in certain areas.
(The 3 parties that believe they have anything to do with jesus have 14% together, but they are not all this crazy).
The liberal party has just 22% of the votes. And although they say they are for small government, they voted to ban shrooms, contrary to advice of the government medical advisory group they asked to research it.
You cannot even have them occurring naturally on your own land.
O
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The obvious solution is to turn the lights off. Street lights are not necessary. Cars have headlights, bikes have headlights, and pedestrians can carry flashlights if there's not enough moonlight for walking. At the very least, they can make the street lights motion-activated.
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I'm Dutch. Most towns and cities do just turn all lights off ( Gelderland, like Nijmegen and many in "de Achterhoek" (area)).
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Most smaller towns do, cities with any population and crime rate do not, they use timed lighting to decrease the costs (on x minutes, off x minutes)...
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Many people feel unsafe in the dark. As soon as a street is dark they imagine the bushes are full of robbers and rapists.
The ultra hard shadows created by street lights make great places for robbers and rapists to hide in.
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See, the problem is that you're conflating what people "feel" with reality.
Many people do lots of things that make them less safe, but FEEL more safe. This is but one example.
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Yeah, my village tried turning off streetlights after midnight. Junctions and the main roads kept the lights, the rest went dark.
Some stupid women complained that they didn't feel safe.
The crime rate stayed flat throughout. Now I get shitty light pollution again, the crime rate hasn't dropped and the women probably still don't feel safe because they're stupid.
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Well, it certainly makes a better environment for the muggers....
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Muggers, if they are a problem maybe you should solve those root issues rather than put in street lights.
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It's an old tried and true deterrent.
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Light, especially at the level of street lights, means you blind to anything not lit by it. It's a poor solution to fighting crime. You are giving them more hiding places while instilling a false sense of security. It's even worse for driving you can no longer see around corners via oncoming lights dimly illuminating tree etc.
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Not an American and ride a bike wherever I go, thank you very much. You need a better headlight if you think that you need street lights. I use a B&M IQ Fly Premium and ride through a forest in total darkness occasionally, just for fun because it's such a great light. Flashlights were impractical just a decade ago, but LED flashlights are cheap, tiny, bright, robust and last many hours on a single charge. And if you still think this is impractical, although people are riding and walking where there are
Ah Well (Score:2)
Yes, this is the vampire haven we've all been craving...
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Yes, this is the vampire haven we've all been craving...
Holland, red lights... I'm not 100% sure the sucking is coming from Vampires. Vampires don't usually ask for a few euros first.
Amazed (Score:5, Interesting)
Always amazed when my fellow countrymen come up with these things. I think it shows the great attention to detail we spend on building infrastructure.
This is the same country where certain traffic lights for bike lanes would get preference when it was raining so people on bikes could get home quicker.
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They did get the basics right, they dug a tunnel under the Botlek. Seriously who cares if the bridge doesn't work anymore.
Though my record is taking 3h to get home one day because both the bridge and the tunnel were closed. .... Well technically the bridge was "open" as confusing as that language is.
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Complained about the old bridge :-)
You're not from Holland are you? Every bridge here opens for water traffic. The highway grinds to a halt when that happens. The tunnel predates the new bridge, but it was all part of a large project to massively expand the Port of Rotterdam, on a shitton of reclaimed land.
The reality is, that many people didn't actually need to go there in the past, because there was just water :-)
Re: Amazed (Score:3)
Agreed. The Shiphol tunnel has inflicted great pain in my life (commuter A'dam - Delft).
However I'm still gobsmacked occasionally by the attention to detail....not only in infrastructure.
When you realize that in Amstelpark the stones and shells on the ground match the color of the tree's blossoms....that's when you know you are in NL.
Love your country, guys, let's make it better! Don't listen to those who try to shame you for your success!
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I hope this spreads. Not just for the bats' sake, but because white light (and the blue frequencies in particular) tend to disrupt the sleep patterns of any mammal, including humans. Red lights let us see where we're going without keeping us awake.
Since when is keeping people on roads awake a bad thing?
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some people are very light sensitive, and blinds are not blackout curtains.
Generally for streetlights though, it is better to just have lower color temperature white light with good color rendering than monochromatic or “spiked” lamps like the old mercury vapor. You also should limit light levels to the minimum needed, and dim when there is no motion in the area.
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Right. So how do I get from Overloon to Berg en Dal at 9pm?
Shit, how do I get from the Openlucht museum in Arnhem to the water museum, out to the Airborne Museum Hartenstein, down to the titchy museum by the bridge then back out to the zoo in the same day by public transport, let alone with enough time to do things at all of those locations, not to mention getting to Arnhem in the first place.
Yeah, I drive in tight European cities. Fucking sue me.
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I hope this spreads. Not just for the bats' sake, but because white light (and the blue frequencies in particular) tend to disrupt the sleep patterns of any mammal, including humans. Red lights let us see where we're going without keeping us awake.
A few points -
We really want to do whatever we can to keep bats happy and healthy. They eat things that are bad for us.
Blue light, the headlight color du jour, is the absolute worst color for visual acuity. The human eye's lens is a simple convex lens, and doesn't focus all colors exactly. And blue is the worst.
Red focuses pretty fair. If visual acuity is paramount, you would want green.
But keep the bats happy is really good. And keeping them happy will keep the numbers of biting insects down.
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You can develop black and white film by streetlight
Please don't. Chemicals for developing black and white photos have been proven to cause cancer in bats in the State of California.
Huh? (Score:1)
So when I was a kid, in the summertime the bats would feed around the streetlights at night starting at dusk. Catch all the insects hanging around the lights.
Either the bats, or the people observing them, have gotten stupider in the interim apparently.
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Depends on the species of bat. Some bats hunt at dusk and dawn and do fine with the streetlights. Some bats hunt in the dead of the night and are driven out of areas with streetlights. Artificial white light is effectively the same as habitat destruction for those species.
Streetlights? (Score:1)
Bats are affected by streetlights? Or are they affected by those shitty LED streetlights with the harsh bluish light(high color temperature) and the atrocious CRI that are being installed everywhere?
I haven't noticed any impact on bats from white mercury vapor or orange High-pressure Sodium(also poor but better than most LED CRI) streetlights.
On a tangential note, shouldn't the Dutch only use orange high-pressure sodium? Seems like a no-brainer to me.
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The Light pollution has been insane since they switched to the LED's in our area...
I'd take a BB gun to them but you know, being a law abiding citizen and all...
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Oh cripes I long for those Orange lights... The Light pollution has been insane since they switched to the LED's in our area...
Many of the LED lights aren't installed correctly; hanging too low in the fixture. When they hang outside, the glare is incredible.
A streetlight isn't very useful when it looks like a point source so bright it causes your pupils to slam shut.
Astronomy (Score:2)
Having reddish streetlights would help astronomy by creating less light pollution in the more sensitive blue and green frequencies.
However, sodium vapor lamps are better, as they are easy to filter out since they produce a narrow frequency band.
Bats are NOT blind (Score:1)
The article says that bats are blind. That is not true ... Bats have reasonably good eyesight. If they were truly blind, then streetlights would not bother them a bit.
"Blind as a bat" is completely wrong.
yes (Score:2)
TheNextWeb.com is a crappy news source (Score:2)
And apparently, bats, although being blind, are bothered by streetlights.
Bats aren't blind.
Makkinga another example (Score:1)
Makkinga removed all street signs, traffic lights, sidewalks, and fines, resulting in fewer accidents, increased safety, and nicer town. The dutch seem to care about science and data more than some other countries.
Maybe those people are ... (Score:2)
... batshit crazy.