NIGHTLIGHTING: Its Use in Capturing Pheasants, 
Prairie Chickens, Bobwhites, and Cottontails 
——— 
THE IDEA OF USING BRIGHT LIGHTS at night to blind ani- 
mals temporarily so that they may be captured is cer- 
tainly not new. Prehistoric man probably used the 
light from burning torches in capturing wild animals. 
Nightlighting in modern game management was first 
demonstrated by workers in South Dakota in the 
1920's. Oscar Johnson (Leopold 1931:118) reported 
that about 22,000 pheasants, Phasianus colchicus, were 
captured in South Dakota during the winters of 1926— 
1927 and 1929-1930 by “shining” roosting birds with 
automobile headlights. However, nightlighting did not 
become a commonly used technique in wildlife biology 
until research studies, which proliferated rapidly after 
the mid-1940’s, necessitated the capture of large num- 
bers of wild birds and mammals. 
Nightlighting has been used most commonly to 
capture pheasants, as is indicated by numerous pub- 
lished accounts, including reports from Idaho (Anony- 
mous 1952), South Dakota (Smith 1954), Nebraska 
(Anonymous 1955) , California (Hart et al. 1956:137) , 
Hlinois (Labisky 1959), North Dakota (Oldenburg 
1961), Indiana (Ginn 1964), and Iowa (Lyon 
1965:51). The pheasant lends itself well to capture by 
nightlighting because it principally inhabits agricul- 
tural regions and thus roosts in cropland terrain that is 
traversable by vehicles equipped for nightlighting (Fig. 
|) . Nightlighting has been a particularly valuable tech- 
nique for capturing large numbers of pheasants in 
tates such as I]linois, where bait trapping of pheasants 
n winter is precluded by an abundant, and usually 
ivailable supply of waste grains. Vehicle-borne night- 
ighting rigs have also been used to capture cottontails, 
syluilagus floridanus, and nongame birds (Labisky 
959), skunks, Mephitis mephitis (Andrews 1968) , 
ind bobwhites, Colinas virginianus (Bartholomew 
967) . 
Nightlighting equipment installed on various 
vatercraft has been effectively used to capture water- 
owl and marsh birds (Leitch 1958; Lindmeier & Jes- 
en 1961; and Cummings & Hewitt 1964). Battery- 
sowered headlamps or hand-held lights have been used 
oO capture large numbers of woodcocks, Philohela 
ninor (Rieffenberger & Kletzly 1967), and a variety 
f gulls and shorebirds (Taapken & Mooyman 1961) . 
\lso, generator-equipped, backpack  nightlighting 
This paper, published by authority of the State of Illinois, IRS_ Ch. 
27, Par. 58.12, is a contribution from Illinois Federal Aid Projects 
0-R, 61-R, and 66-R, the Illinois Department of Conservation, the Wes: 
tureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Illinois Natural History 
urvey, cooperating. Dr. Ronald F. Labisky is an Associate Wildlife 
pecialist in the Section of Wildlife Research at the Survey. 
Ronald F. Labisky 
units have been proven effective for capturing birds 
and mammals in environments, either aquatic or up- 
land, where other methods of trapping were either 
inconvenient or unsuccessful (Drewien et al. 1967). 
My previous article on nightlighting (Labisky 
1959) was concerned primarily with the application of 
the technique to capturing pheasants. The purpose of 
this paper is to list improvements in equipment (and 
operational design) used in outfitting vehicles for 
nightlighting and to describe techniques for capturing 
bobwhites; prairie chickens, Tympanuchus cupido; 
cottontails; and pheasants. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
Acknowledgment is made to the following person- 
nel of the Illinois Natural History Survey. William L. 
Anderson offered advice on all aspects of nightlighting. 
Jack A. Ellis, Ronald L. Westemeier, and Keith P. 
Thomas contributed many of the capture statistics for 
prairie chickens and bobwhites, and read the manu- 
script. Robert O. Ellis and David B. Cooley assisted in 
designing and constructing the nightlighting equip- 
ment. All photographs were by Wilmer D. Zehr. The 
cover was designed by Richard M. Sheets. O. F. Glis- 
sendorf edited the manuscript. 
EQUIPMENT 
The basic equipment (Fig. 2) for outfitting a 
vehicle for nightlighting consisted of a floodlight clus- 
ter, a power source to operate the floodlights, and a 
spotlight. A vehicle equipped with 4-wheel drive is 
recommended, although not essential, for night- 
lighting. 
The floodlights have been operated from 110-volt 
a-c or 12-volt d-c power sources. The power supply for 
d-c systems was rigged by replacing the vehicle’s fac- 
tory-installed alternator with a high-amperage alter- 
nator. However, d-c systems provided less illumination 
than a-c systems because the available d-c lamps had 
lower candlepower ratings than a-c lamps. Consequent- 
ly, under ordinary situations, a-c systems were favored 
for nightlighting work, and thus are given primary 
consideration in this report. 
The a-c floodlight cluster consisted of five 150-watt 
PAR/FL projector floodlamps. These were held most 
satisfactorily by Killark Model SLH_ lampholders 
mounted in a Killark Model SY wiring trough. The 
trough was mounted at the top of a modified tripod 
