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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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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.”