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I understand the appeal of fireworks, but I can’t help but wonder how it is for birds to suddenly see the sky set on fire, to hear a boom so loud it’s unnatural. Read the letter.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to play PETA. I’m not vegan, or even vegetarian, I’m not a member of any dietary dioceses.
And I understand the appeal of fireworks. Of things that go boom, pretty things, at that. They’re cool, they’re loud, they’re all-American and they’re fun. They’re historical. They represent some battle fought long ago, some freedoms sought long ago. They’re a reason to not go into work.
Even still—I can’t help but wonder what they are to the birds. Perched in their nests, or flying home; I want to know how fireworks look to them. To suddenly see the sky set on fire, to hear a boom so loud it’s unnatural. To see us humans crowded in spots typically deserted, staring up at these intentional bombshells. I wonder if they can see the colors, or if it’s just smoke and light and sonics.
Do the older birds pass along the knowledge of fireworks to their chicks? Do they write myths about the Fourth of July: the annual apocalypse, known to all animalia? Do they give warnings? Practice their own tradition of fleeing before the rockets come?
We, the people, have researched this. NIH articles detail how “birds flee en mass” (Shamoun-Baranes, 2011) from celebrations in the city. We’ve even managed to put a number to it: “[quantifying the] major disturbance of birds by fireworks” (Wayman, 2023). But what’s the use, right? What’s the deal? The rows of firework billboards piled up on Midwestern highways don’t notice the birds that sit on them. I doubt that Black Cat and TNT Fireworks have an avian PR team. The chickadees can’t hawk you down in court.
No, I’m not trying to shame anyone. I don’t intend to, nor believe that I can, invoke guilt in any firework fans or fiends. All I may ask of you—as the lovebird’s lawyer—is to pay our winged neighbors some mind. To notice how, on perhaps the most American day of the year; our bald eagles sit as victims as much as they do figureheads.
Grace Jones
Biochemistry student at Rochester Institute of Technology
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Domestic cats that roam outside (and feral cats) kill a lot of birds and small mammals. A lot. Fireworks are practically a non-issue for birds.
It’s not just the birds. I live across the street from a neighborhood park where people think it’s okay to set off fireworks similar to what’s used by every city and town in Monroe county. Last Monday, they started after sundown and continued to well after 2:00 a.m. A neighbor who lives a half mile from me reported that he apparently heard them in his sleep and incorporated them into a dream that he was fighting in a war from a bygone era. At least he was able to get some sleep. Every time I started to drop off to sleep, another boom, as loud as a cannon, happened less than 200 feet from my house. Other neighbors also had their sleep disturbed by it and the pets nearby, including in my home, were terrorized. I don’t understand what’s wrong with people that they don’t have respect for people and pets in the neighborhood where they live. I too have sympathy for what the birds and other wildlife are experiencing, but I don’t believe someone who can’t respect people will ever get to the point where they can respect wildlife.
I’m in agreement that it’s time to end fireworks in midsummer. Midwinter would be a better time, when the world is still and other creatures with whom we share this planet are not nesting and raising their young. Firework shows in summer are just another example of what has to be either the obliviousness or the selfishness of humans.
See Margaret Renkl’s article of last year in the New York Times:
“Opinion: Want to do something patriotic this year? Ditch the fireworks.
It would be so easy to find a new and less harmful way to celebrate the founding of a nation.”