Meeting Abstract
Light and light cycles produced by the sun have shaped the adaptations of animals on earth over millions of years. Artificial light produced by humans has imposed new sources of light that can profoundly impact animals. These impacts can be particularly strong on animals in managed care, where sources of artificial light compete with or replace natural light. Light exposure drives circadian rhythms and can affect multiple biological processes across all taxa including; sleep wake cycles, activity budgets, behavior, body condition, reproduction, immune function, digestive function, and much more. Disney’s Animal Kingdom® has extended its operating hours resulting in artificial light sources illuminating animal habitats past natural sunset. With this in mind we began to measure light sources and mediate brightness and/or spectral distribution as appropriate. Our goals are to keep illuminance measurements in a range that would be typical at night, and reduce or eliminate wavelengths below 500nm (blue, violet, and UV wavelengths) which have the strongest impacts on circadian rhythms. We will discuss examples of mitigation techniques and their effectiveness.
