Lawsuit Wants Hotel to Turn Off Lights

(Kauai, Hawaii) Conservation groups have filed suit against the St. Regis Princeville Resort on Kauai claiming that the hotel fails to prevent death and injury to native seabirds from the hotel's lights.

Hui Hoomalu i ka Aina, the Conservation Council for Hawaii, the Center for Biological Diversity and the American Bird Conservancy filed the complaint yesterday in federal court.

The groups contend the resort is violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act by not preventing deaths and injuries among Kauai's Newell's shear- water population, also known as Hawaiian shear- water birds, or a'o. They also claim that Hawaiian petrels, or ua'u, also have been injured or died because of the hotel's lights.

Hawaiian shearwater birds are a threatened species, and petrels are an endangered species. Both are endemic to Hawaii.

Not an expert here but that shearwater above looks a lot like the common seagull. They're probably related.

In any event, the conservation groups "want the hotel to turn off lights during the September-December season or install motion sensors or timers on the lighting system to minimize harm to the nocturnal seabirds."