Friday night football plans finalized for fall on Kauai

There will be at least three Friday night football games on Kauai this fall as state and federal wildlife officials finalize a plan to minimize the effects of strobe lights that indirectly kill endangered seabirds.

Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami approved an agreement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the County of Kauai to allow the use of stadium lights for three high school football games on Sept. 27 and Oct. 4. The agreement calls for monitoring and the reporting of downed seabirds during those games, in addition to other provisions.

Teams are forced to play during the day from Sept. 15 through Dec. 15, when the island’s endangered seabirds begin to take their first flights and migrate. The young birds have mistaken bright stadium lights for the moon and stars, which they rely on to guide their way out to sea. Circling the lights, many were eventually falling to the ground from exhaustion, then were attacked by cats or run over by cars.

To comply with the Migratory Bird Treat Act to protect the endangered seabirds, Friday night games beginning in 2010 were no longer allowed on Kauai. They resumed in the 2017 football season with four that year.

Kauai County said it is helping to finalize the Kauai Seabird Habitat Conservation Plan to “mitigate the effects of light attraction on the protected seabirds” and define conservation goals with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We are committed to bringing back a long-standing national tradition of Friday Night Lights to our keiki and families here on Kauai, while ensuring the protection of our environment,” Kawakami said in a news release.

In 2010 the county was fined $15,000 for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, required to make a $30,000 donation to the Save Our Shearwater program and to pay $180,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.