Red Light For Nocturnal Animals

Night time light pollution is rapidly increasing across the world.

Red light for nocturnal animals.

This new spectrum of light 630nm maintains sleep cycles for nocturnal animals such as mice and rats. Key advantages of green light leds many seasoned hunters have strong opinions about which led to use when hunting coyotes hogs and other nocturnal game. The photo below of a nesting powerful owl was a 1 3 second exposure at f6 3 and iso 6400 illuminated with the headlamp shown above. Nocturnal animals are likely to be especially affected but how they respond to artificial light is still largely unknown.

Red light led is the traditional go to light color for most seasoned hunters. The main disadvantage of using red light is that everything appears red. Humans have three types of cone cells which have peak sensitivities to blue light s cones green light m cones and red light l cones. However the green light led is gaining popularity especially for hunting feral hogs and for good reason.

Research facilities commonly use rodents for study and therefore must address the issue of proper lighting for these nocturnal animals. With red light you are able to watch and photograph nocturnal animals behaving naturally. Need quotation to verify many animals have a tissue layer called the tapetum lucidum in the back of the eye that reflects light back through the retina increasing the amount of light available for it to. The most important consequence of this for viewing nocturnal animals is that red light does not harm their night vision and they continue to function normally when illuminated with red light.