When "Lights Out" comes alive at Tonka, Honnavar

In the book Lights Out a village decides to switch off all its lights for a small sparrow. It sounds like fiction about sacrifice and kindness.

Here at Tonka-Kasarkod beach in Honnavar, Uttara Kannada, this fiction is happening for real but here, it's not for a sparrow. It's for the Olive Ridley turtle.

ALAN is deadly

ALAN is an acronym for artificial lighting at night.

1.  For mothers: Olive Ridleys nest only on dark, quiet beaches. Bright white lights from high-mast lights, harbour development and beach tourism scare the mothers away. If they feel light, they return to the sea without laying eggs.

2.  For babies: Hatchlings are born with one instinct - crawl towards the brightest light, which for millions of years was the moonlight reflecting on the sea. Today, artificial lights from the shore are brighter than the moon. The babies get disoriented, crawl towards the road and buildings, and die from exhaustion, dogs, or vehicles.

Research indicates that we must control artificial lighting along turtle nesting beaches because it disrupts hatchling orientation.

What is heartening is that the local fishermen and the forest department already understand this Lights Out philosophy. They protect the nests with green mesh, guard them from stray dogs for 45-50 days, and at night, they use dim torches to gently guide the confused hatchlings back to the sea.

Lights Out teaches us that co-existence needs sacrifice. Tonka teaches us that sacrifice is practical conservation.

If we really want to save this beach, we need planned lighting: warm amber lights instead of white Light Emitting Diode (LED), lights shielded and pointed downwards, no high-mast lights within 1 km of the nesting zone, and a complete lights-out during the nesting season from 10 PM to 4 AM.

The village in the book chose darkness to let a small bird live. Can Honnavar choose darkness to let an ancient ocean traveller live on?

This story is not just about a village in the book. Today at Tonka-Kasarkod, we need the same Lights Out for Olive Ridley turtles.

Apeksha R. Tandel