OUR HISTORY

Lights Out Central New York was created in October 2024 by the Onondaga Audubon Society in response to the urgent need to protect millions of migratory birds that rest and nest in Central New York during peak migration.

OUR MISSION

Lights Out CNY works across the Central New York region to reduce the danger of unnecessary artificial nighttime lighting for migratory birds through advocacy and public education.

OUR VISION

We envision a world where nocturnally migratory birds can safely migrate through our region, under star-filled skies.

Connecticut Warbler.

  • Chair

    Meredith Barges

    Meredith Barges is a bird-friendly building policy advocate and a PhD student at the SUNY School of Environment. Through her work, she helps people to understand and appreciate the complex lives of birds, how birds interact with the built environment, and how our decisions about buildings, lighting, and landscaping affect bird populations, with existential stakes. In 2023, as co-chair of Lights Out Connecticut, she co-led a statewide campaign to pass Public Act No. 23-143, the “Lights Out CT bill,” which requires all state-owned building in Connecticut to turn off unnecessary exterior nighttime lights for birds. As a former policy researcher for the Yale Bird-friendly Building Initiative, she co-authored “Building Safer Cities for Birds: How Cities Are Leading the Way on Bird-Friendly Building Policy” (American Bird Conservancy & Yale Law School, 2023). She holds an MA in history from the University of Chicago and an MDiv in religion & ecology from Yale University.

  • ADVISOR

    Susan Harder is the New York Chapter Chair of DarkSky. As the NY State Representative of the International Dark Sky Association, she tirelessly works to establish regulations and guidelines to protect the night sky from the effects of light pollution caused by excessive and misdirected lighting. She frequently delivers educational lectures about the deleterious impact of light pollution and what we can do about it. Susan is a former New York City art curator and namesake gallery owner.

  • ADVISOR

    Leo Smith is the Northeast Regional Director and Connecticut Chapter Chair of DarkSky. He works strategically to protect the night across the United States by integrating Dark Sky lighting principles into national building codes. He developed language used to amend the CT State Building Code to cover parking lot lighting and introduced two code change proposals to NY State Energy Code in 2019. He was a member of the DarkSky International board of directors (2004-2016) and voting member of the Illuminating Engineering Society’s Roadway Lighting Committee (2006-2019), serving on its Standard Practice and Residential Street Lighting subcommittees. He is a long-time resident of Suffield, CT.