Charlotte has formally recognized a voluntary campaign to reduce nighttime lighting during bird migration, but the city’s new proclamation does not require private buildings to change their lighting practices. City Council records identify the measure as File #15-26641, presented at the council’s business meeting: city records.
Council member Kimberly Owens read the proclamation Monday, designating March through May and September through November as Bird Safe Awareness Months. It asks residents and businesses to turn off nonessential lights from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. during those periods, according to WFAE. Because the measure is a proclamation rather than a binding lighting rule, its effect will depend on whether property owners and residents choose to participate.
A radar estimate, not a collision count
The announcement coincided with a major overnight migration detected over Mecklenburg County. WFAE reported that BirdCast data estimated more than 3 million birds passed over the county that night, with migration intensity reaching nearly half a million birds around 11 p.m. BirdCast says its radar-based models estimate migration intensity for birds in active flight; they do not directly count individual birds or predict how many birds are on the ground.
That distinction matters. The overnight figure describes birds moving through the region, not the number that struck buildings or died. The proclamation’s practical premise, as reported by WFAE, is that reducing unnecessary nighttime light can lower one urban hazard during periods when large numbers of birds are moving overhead.
Charlotte has tried to draw attention to the problem before
The current proclamation follows earlier local advocacy rather than starting the conversation from scratch. The Associated Press reported in September 2012 that Mecklenburg Audubon was urging Charlotte building operators to reduce nighttime lighting after volunteers found four dozen birds on city streets during the preceding month. The report documented an earlier effort to persuade building operators to address collisions during migration.
Local monitoring has continued in other forms. In September 2021, volunteers from local Audubon chapters were walking Charlotte streets each morning to document species and locations of dead birds and contact building owners about possible mitigation, according to Axios Charlotte. A separate effort at UNC Charlotte reported finding more than 20 deceased birds during campus bird walks by April 2022, according to Inside UNC Charlotte.
A notable collision shows the stakes—but not the scale
One particularly serious Charlotte incident occurred in 2019, when hundreds of chimney swifts crashed into the glass at the NASCAR Hall of Fame after being spooked from a roost, Axios Charlotte reported. That event is a specific collision incident, not evidence that collisions are increasing or a measurement of what the new proclamation will prevent.
The city’s challenge now is implementation. The proclamation establishes seasonal dates and a suggested overnight schedule, but it does not identify participating properties, require reporting, or set a target for reduced lighting. It also leaves unanswered whether major uptown building owners will adopt formal lights-out procedures during migration peaks.
A 2012 report on Lights Out DC said similar programs had reduced migrating-bird mortality by as much as 80 percent in some cities, while cautioning that such results do not establish what Charlotte’s voluntary effort will achieve. The local record shows sustained advocacy and documented collisions; the city’s new measure will determine whether that advocacy produces broader participation.
