Lights in the sky, animals die: New Year's Eve fireworks take their toll yet again
Another New Year, another night of fun, fireworks and terrified animals. The bright lights and bangs might offer up a momentary thrill during winter festivities, but as dog caregiver Claire Hamlett discusses, spare a thought for the animals who suffer and die as a result.
As 2022 began, I was entering my fourth day in self-isolation, but even if I wasn’t forced to stay home with Covid I wouldn’t have been out celebrating New Year’s Eve. In fact, I haven’t been out for NYE since 2017, when I adopted my first dog. Instead, I have to carefully plan when to take her out for a last walk before it gets dark, after which we hunker down inside with the TV on constantly and the curtains drawn to dull the booms and flashes of light while she trembles under the sofa.
Perhaps due to the current Covid situation, there were fewer fireworks going off in our neighbourhood than last year, and my dog got through it pretty well. But not all animals were so lucky. Now that we’re a few days into the new year, the death toll and trauma caused by the December 31st celebrations is becoming apparent, as though we’ve just got through a natural disaster rather than a night of revelry.
Social media is awash with reports of dogs spending the night in a state of terror or, in the worst cases, running away in a panic, as well as horses being spooked. Anna Malia, founder of advocacy group North East Animal Rights, reported on Facebook in a truly heartbreaking post that her rescue rabbit Lottie died from fright on NYE. In Nova Scotia, Canada, a horse sustained a catastrophic leg injury after bolting in fright and had to be put down. According to an Italian animal charity, several hundred cats and dogs died while fireworks were going off.
Wild animals have also been suffering severely. Again in Italy, the bodies of hundreds of starlings and other birds littered the streets near Rome’s main train station on New Year’s Day. The International Organization for the Protection of Animals (OIPA) blamed fireworks and firecrackers being set off near where the birds nest and suggested that the animals may have died of fright or from collisions as they flew about in a panic. It is likely there have been other wild casualties wherever fireworks have been set off, judging by past incidents such as the young deer who sustained serious injuries and died in Wiltshire after Guy Fawkes’ celebrations in 2021.
The fear that fireworks cause to animals is widespread and well-documented. Surveys show that almost half of dogs and 79 per cent of horses become stressed and anxious during fireworks, with horses prone to breaking through fences and injuring themselves. Noises above certain volumes have been found to increase the heart rate in pigs and cause hyperventilation in lambs. Certain bird species abandon their nests or even whole colonies. For companion animals, the risks are worse when fireworks are set off at unexpected times, such as during the day, when their guardians might have expected it to be safe to take them outside. In the UK, this has been happening more in the past couple of years as the cancellation of public displays due to the pandemic has encouraged people to set fireworks off at home - a problem that the RSPCA warned about ahead of NYE 2021.
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Due to the harm they cause to animals, calls to ban fireworks for private use now accompany certain events as much as the fireworks do. Bans have in fact been introduced in the past two years in some European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands. But these are motivated by the pandemic, in a bid to stop firework-related injuries from burdening overstretched medical services, rather than by a desire to protect animals. Many people have ignored the bans by purchasing fireworks in neighbouring countries where they are still sold legally. A ban in the UK would at least be more effective in that sense, since it would be much more difficult to smuggle fireworks back into the country through the Eurotunnel, though in 2019 the government ruled out a ban on rather dubious grounds, including that it would cause economic harm to those who sell fireworks for a living. Scotland is at least trying to limit the damage after introducing a law in 2021 restricting the hours in which fireworks can be set off and making it an offence to frighten animals with fireworks, punishable with a fine or even jail time. Given how many animals suffer from fireworks, one wonders how anyone could set off fireworks without breaking that law.
What other options are there besides bans and restrictions for reducing the harm caused by the few seconds of pleasure that fireworks give to some people? Silent fireworks have been available for years, and some organised displays have switched to using them, but they are not actually entirely silent and mostly can’t provide the big explosions of colour that particularly loud fireworks achieve. Displays using these fireworks are likely to be less spectacular - which animal guardians may not mind, but it doesn’t create much incentive for more people to use them when what they want is to see huge aerial displays.
Drones may provide a solution. In the past few years, they have been used to create impressive light shows including for the 2020 NYE celebrations in London and Scotland and the opening ceremony of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, without causing harmful noise pollution. But an RSPCA spokesperson told the Guardian that drones aren’t free of impacts on animals: “Drones are not without their own negative issues such as spooking horses and livestock or colliding with birds, and can cause disturbance to animals and members of the public. It’s therefore important for their effects to be fully considered and measures taken to minimise the chance of accidents.”
With no perfect solution to the problem of fireworks, bans on personal use may ultimately be the best option, and one that is supported by a majority of British people: 89 per cent of 7,000 participants, according to a recent survey by the Mirror, with the distress they cause companion animals as the main reason. Though the government ignored the public’s wishes in its 2019 decision not to ban fireworks, hopefully sustained public pressure will one day make it value the lives of millions of companion, domesticated, and wild animals over the handful of jobs that the fireworks industry provides.
The UK legislation governing fireworks (Fireworks Act 2003, Fireworks Regulations 2004) are failing animals. Sign the petition asking the UK’s Office for Product Safety and Standards to urgently review regulations to restrict private use; reduce the maximum permitted decibels; require all public fireworks displays to be licensed, and require fireworks packaging to be labelled indicating the noise level.
Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.
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