Rare Footage Shows An ‘A‘o (Newell’s Shearwater) Attempting To Regain Flight After Being Downed By Lights

An endangered ‘A‘o (Newell’s Shearwater) was filmed this month trying to take off after being attracted to lights in Waimea and crash landing. The bird was subsequently rescued after staff from Archipelago Research and Conservation (ARC) spotted the bird through a thermal camera while it was climbing a fence in a bid to get airborne.

At this time of year on Kaua’i, fledgling seabirds are attracted to bright lights which disorientate them. Once attracted, they will circle lower and lower until they are grounded. Unfortunately, after the young birds crash land, it’s almost always impossible for them to get airborne again as they need a steep slope to take off from. If they are not rescued, they will typically die of starvation, be eaten by predators such as cats or be run over by cars.

Marc Travers of ARC said, “It was just good luck that I saw this bird through the thermal camera. It had managed to haul itself up a fence in a bid to regain flight, but even with the added lift it still ended up crashing back to the ground. We rescued the bird and took it to the Save Our Shearwaters program where it was successfully released. This was in the middle of Waimea town and it’s a good reminder to all of us that we need to dim our outdoor lights and turn off unnecessary lights during the fall out season, which continues until December 15th”.

The public can help to protect these culturally important native birds by looking out for downed shearwaters and taking any that they find to a fire station or to SOS. Unnecessary outdoor lighting should be turned off, and necessary lighting should be dimmed and shielded.