Lights Out Cleveland
Courtney Brennan

April 5, 2022
Carlisle Reservation Visitor Center

The combination of light pollution and reflective building materials confuse migratory birds leading to collisions with buildings. Each year millions of birds migrate through Ohio where lights on tall buildings can disorient them and cause them to strike windows or circle the buildings until they fall from exhaustion. Lights Out Cleveland is part of a growing international movement to protect migratory birds endangered by city lights. It is part of a collaborative effort between citizen scientists who collect dead or injured birds, researchers who collect a wide variety of data from birds collected, regional wildlife organizations that train volunteers and rehabilitate birds, and local businesses committed to reducing light pollution during peak migratory seasons. Courtney Brennan will update us on the progress being made to reduce crashes, and how each of us can become part of the solution.

About Courtney

Courtney Brennan is the senior collections manager of zoology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History where she oversees the maintenance and development of the ornithology, vertebrate zoology, and invertebrate zoology research collections. Her current research interests include Passerine hybridization and migration studies in the Great Lakes region. She is heavily involved with the Lights Out Cleveland project, studying bird-building collisions in the city and coordinating volunteer specimen preparation groups to process all bird casualties associated with the project. Courtney is a Cleveland native and graduated from Cleveland State University with a Master's degree in Environmental Science.