Question: Do animals behave/act differently when the aurora borealis is visible or are they used to it?

Lisa Baddeley answered on 6 Mar 2018:

Hi, That is a really interesting question. There was a study done here on Svalbard to see if some animals did react differently. The scientists concentrated mainly on reindeers (we have a lot of them here) and, as far as anyone could tell, the reindeers didn’t react differently at all. There was also some research done to see if plankton in the sea would react to the aurora since some plankton comes up to the surface of the sea during the night time (ie. when its dark) and then go back to deeper depths during the day. Again, they thought the aurora might confuse the plankton and they would disappear again to the depths thinking it was daylight but they didn’t find any effects at all.
It is thought that a lot of animals use the Earth’s magnetic field as a navigation system (such as birds and whales) and since the aurora also represents changes in the Earth’s magnetic field then some people think that it could be possible for it to effect them. The major problem is being able to track whales and birds well enough that you could see if the aurora is effecting them.
I think at the moment the animals who react the most to the aurora are us humans!