The effects of fireworks on animals and people
The intense, erratic sounds and lights from fireworks frighten animals, both wild and domesticated. Fear and stress responses have been documented in pets, zoo animals and wildlife. Wild animals may flee when fireworks start: Weather radars have recorded masses of birds taking flight and studies have shown fleeing by sea lions and seals. This rush to escape costs the animals energy and can lead to longer-term damage, said Bill Bateman, a professor of ecology at Curtin University in Australia and the author on a review of global research on the impact of fireworks on the environment. The animals may abandon habitats completely, or return with less energy for regular survival.
These effects are worse when fireworks occur during migration and breeding seasons. Independence Day in the United States, for example, falls in the breeding season for many coastal birds. Shorebirds are particularly at risk because of their proximity to fireworks and beach crowds, said Nicole Michel, director of quantitative science at the National Audubon Society. Birds frightened by fireworks may abandon their nests, leaving chicks or eggs behind and exposed to threats like predators. And adult birds are already running at the end of their energy reserves by this time, Michel said. They may be eating less while sitting on nests or burning more energy as they feed themselves and their chicks. 'These poor birds are just run ragged,' she said. 'It's additional stress for a bird that's already very stressed'.
Occasionally, fireworks kill large numbers of birds. In Beebe, Arkansas, in 2011 and 2012, thousands of blackbirds died after New Year's after being startled by fireworks. In 2022, fireworks in Taylor, Texas, caused nesting egrets to scatter, leading several to strike power transformers. 'Many of these birds, they're not nocturnal and they're flying low. They are surrounded by buildings and trees,' Bateman said. 'It's probably not a surprise that they end up piling into these things.' Fireworks cause short-term surges in air pollution and leave behind toxins in waterways and soil that harm people and wildlife over the long term. 'Bursting fireworks produce a thick particulate smoke that's laden with lots of nasty chemicals,' Bateman said.
Studies have shown that air worsens in the hours after fireworks, containing particulate matter, metals and gases like sulfur dioxide. Levels are higher after celebrations where fireworks use is high over multiple days. Air pollution aggravates lung and heart disease and is linked to other health conditions. Chemicals linked to fireworks, including perchlorate, have also been detected in water bodies.
Fireworks are also commonly made with and wrapped in plastic and leave behind debris that can be ingested by animals and break down into microplastics. One study found New Year's fireworks in London caused an immediate spike in microplastics. 'Firework displays are spectacular and culturally important,' Bateman said, 'and if there are options that are more environmentally friendly, then we really, really should embrace those'.
With traditional fireworks, damage can by reduced by shortening the length of shows and number of fireworks used and moving them farther from people and animals. Community displays, staged high in the air, are better than firing fireworks individually, experts said. 'People just setting off fireworks all over the place are going to impact far more birds just because it is more spread out,' Michel said. 'There's also the risk of starting a fire, which would then destroy habitat'.
Drone light shows are increasing in popularity. They are quieter and don't release the intense bursts of pollution associated with fireworks, though they still carry some smaller risks. Several cities and venues have swapped firework spectacles for drones in recent years, citing concerns over wildfires, pollution and wildlife.
This week, the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, held its first Independence Day show using drones set to the music of a live band instead of fireworks. The town is home to a colony of nesting American oystercatchers that have settled on the islands in its harbour in recent years. In order to protect the birds, fireworks are not an option, said Marco Boer, chair of the Hingham Harbour Development Committee, which organised the event. Boer said he had worried that people might miss the 'big bang' of fireworks but that his community's response to Wednesday's drone show was 'overwhelmingly positive'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Observer
05-07-2025
- Observer
The effects of fireworks on animals and people
The rockets, explosions and cascading colours of fireworks are a staple of celebrations throughout the world, whether at the Fourth of July, Diwali or New Year's Eve. But while the clamour of light and sound brings out cheers from revelers, fireworks can cause panic in animals. They also leave behind trails of pollution that take a lingering toll on the environment and people. Here is what to know about the harm fireworks cause and recommendations from experts on how people can celebrate while reducing the impact. The intense, erratic sounds and lights from fireworks frighten animals, both wild and domesticated. Fear and stress responses have been documented in pets, zoo animals and wildlife. Wild animals may flee when fireworks start: Weather radars have recorded masses of birds taking flight and studies have shown fleeing by sea lions and seals. This rush to escape costs the animals energy and can lead to longer-term damage, said Bill Bateman, a professor of ecology at Curtin University in Australia and the author on a review of global research on the impact of fireworks on the environment. The animals may abandon habitats completely, or return with less energy for regular survival. These effects are worse when fireworks occur during migration and breeding seasons. Independence Day in the United States, for example, falls in the breeding season for many coastal birds. Shorebirds are particularly at risk because of their proximity to fireworks and beach crowds, said Nicole Michel, director of quantitative science at the National Audubon Society. Birds frightened by fireworks may abandon their nests, leaving chicks or eggs behind and exposed to threats like predators. And adult birds are already running at the end of their energy reserves by this time, Michel said. They may be eating less while sitting on nests or burning more energy as they feed themselves and their chicks. 'These poor birds are just run ragged,' she said. 'It's additional stress for a bird that's already very stressed'. Occasionally, fireworks kill large numbers of birds. In Beebe, Arkansas, in 2011 and 2012, thousands of blackbirds died after New Year's after being startled by fireworks. In 2022, fireworks in Taylor, Texas, caused nesting egrets to scatter, leading several to strike power transformers. 'Many of these birds, they're not nocturnal and they're flying low. They are surrounded by buildings and trees,' Bateman said. 'It's probably not a surprise that they end up piling into these things.' Fireworks cause short-term surges in air pollution and leave behind toxins in waterways and soil that harm people and wildlife over the long term. 'Bursting fireworks produce a thick particulate smoke that's laden with lots of nasty chemicals,' Bateman said. Studies have shown that air worsens in the hours after fireworks, containing particulate matter, metals and gases like sulfur dioxide. Levels are higher after celebrations where fireworks use is high over multiple days. Air pollution aggravates lung and heart disease and is linked to other health conditions. Chemicals linked to fireworks, including perchlorate, have also been detected in water bodies. Fireworks are also commonly made with and wrapped in plastic and leave behind debris that can be ingested by animals and break down into microplastics. One study found New Year's fireworks in London caused an immediate spike in microplastics. 'Firework displays are spectacular and culturally important,' Bateman said, 'and if there are options that are more environmentally friendly, then we really, really should embrace those'. With traditional fireworks, damage can by reduced by shortening the length of shows and number of fireworks used and moving them farther from people and animals. Community displays, staged high in the air, are better than firing fireworks individually, experts said. 'People just setting off fireworks all over the place are going to impact far more birds just because it is more spread out,' Michel said. 'There's also the risk of starting a fire, which would then destroy habitat'. Drone light shows are increasing in popularity. They are quieter and don't release the intense bursts of pollution associated with fireworks, though they still carry some smaller risks. Several cities and venues have swapped firework spectacles for drones in recent years, citing concerns over wildfires, pollution and wildlife. This week, the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, held its first Independence Day show using drones set to the music of a live band instead of fireworks. The town is home to a colony of nesting American oystercatchers that have settled on the islands in its harbour in recent years. In order to protect the birds, fireworks are not an option, said Marco Boer, chair of the Hingham Harbour Development Committee, which organised the event. Boer said he had worried that people might miss the 'big bang' of fireworks but that his community's response to Wednesday's drone show was 'overwhelmingly positive'.
Observer
17-06-2025
- Observer
First fossil proof found that long-necked dinosaurs were vegetarians
In the movie 'Jurassic Park,' a character proclaims there is nothing to fear from a towering Brachiosaurus, because it's a 'veggie-saurus' that eats only plants. Littlefoot, the 'Longneck' dinosaur in the 'Land Before Time' series, eats leaves, or 'tree stars.' But although pop culture and general scientific opinion have agreed for decades that the long-necked sauropod dinosaurs were herbivores, there was no definitive proof found in the fossil record. But there were hints of a diet full of green stuff. Fossils of sauropods, which stomped across the planet for 130 million years, are plentiful; additionally, herbivores tend to outnumber those of carnivores. The animals had small, peglike teeth, and their huge, lumbering bodies seemed ill equipped to chase down prey. 'Plants were pretty much the only option,' said Stephen Poropat, a paleontologist and the deputy director of the Western Australian Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Center at Curtin University in Perth. A study published in the journal Current Biology provides what may be the first concrete proof to support this argument, in the form of fossilized plants discovered in the belly of a sauropod. 'It's the smoking gun, or the steaming guts, as it were — the actual direct evidence in the belly of the beast,' Poropat said. Poropat, along with scientists and volunteers from the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, encountered the fossil on a dig in Queensland, Australia, in 2017. — KATE GOLEMBIEWSKI ?NYT
Observer
29-05-2025
- Observer
Astronomers scrutinise a star behaving unlike any other
WASHINGTON: Astronomers have spotted a star acting unlike any other ever observed as it unleashes a curious combination of radio waves and X-rays, pegging it as an exotic member of a class of celestial objects first identified only three years ago. It is located in the Milky Way galaxy about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Scutum, flashing every 44 minutes in both radio waves and X-ray emissions. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). The researchers said it belongs to a class of objects called "long-period radio transients", known for bright bursts of radio waves that appear every few minutes to several hours. This is much longer than the rapid pulses in radio waves typically detected from pulsars - a type of speedily rotating neutron star, the dense collapsed core of a massive star after its death. Pulsars appear, as viewed from Earth, to be blinking on and off on timescales of milliseconds to seconds. "What these objects are and how they generate their unusual signals remain a mystery," said astronomer Ziteng Wang of Curtin University in Australia, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature. In the new study, the researchers used data from Nasa's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, the ASKAP telescope in Australia and other telescopes. While the emission of radio waves from the newly identified object is similar to the approximately 10 other known examples of this class, it is the only one sending out X-rays, according to astrophysicist and study co-author Nanda Rea of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona. The researchers have some hypotheses about the nature of this star. They said it may be a magnetar, a spinning neutron star with an extreme magnetic field, or perhaps a white dwarf, a highly compact stellar ember, with a close and quick orbit around a small companion star in what is called a binary system. "However, neither of them could explain all observational features we saw," Wang said. Stars with up to eight times the mass of our sun appear destined to end up as a white dwarf. They eventually burn up all the hydrogen they use as fuel. Gravity then causes them to collapse and blow off their outer layers in a "red giant" stage, eventually leaving behind a compact core roughly the diameter of Earth - the white dwarf. The observed radio waves potentially could have been generated by the interaction between the white dwarf and the hypothesised companion star, the researchers said. - Reuters
