A review of the potential impacts of artificial lights on fish and wildlife and how this may apply to cannabis cultivation

Abstract

Artificial lighting is used at cannabis cultivation sites in California to promote yield, for task lighting, and to provide security. While our understanding of how fish and wildlife respond to the artificial lights associated with cannabis cultivation specifically is in its infancy, studies assessing species’ responses to other forms of artificial lighting at night have been ongoing for decades. We provide a review of these studies, with the goal of illuminating how artificial lights may influence the activity, movement, navigation, migration, phenology, and physiology of fish and wildlife populations.

Keywords

• activity patterns
• artificial light
• cannabis
• fish
• migration
• movement
• phenology
• physiology
• wildlife
• photobiology