Birds suffer from New Year’s barrels.
Not just dogs and cats, researchers have found that birds also suffer major trauma on New Year’s Eve from firecrackers and explosions.
Many people wonder every year what effects New Year’s fireworks and barrels have on animals such as dogs and cats. The latter, while remaining at home, are negatively affected and it often happens that because of these noises they suffer from tachycardia and anxiety disorders that are difficult to eradicate.
While it may surprise you, one study has shown that birds can also have long-term ill effects after New Year’s Eve . Geese, for example, after the fright are no longer able to resume their normal activity and are forced to flee just like humans when they sense danger. Here’s what shooting New Year’s barrels for birds entails and why it should be best avoided.
The tragedy of New Year’s explosions
For many animals, New Year’s Eve celebrations are a real nightmare . However, the year is coming to an end and as usual we need to prepare to face the difficult night full of fireworks , loud noises and firecrackers , which make it difficult for many animal species to calm down. In fact, not everyone knows that this could have serious consequences on their behavior , especially if subjected to a prolonged fright that lasts all night. Even wild animals are victims of this practice, so much so that some German researchers of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior have discovered that wild geese are negatively affected by the impact of fireworks.
The birds, therefore, are subjected to such stress that they are inactive for all the following days. The researchers ‘ study was very serious and lasted for about eight years . Special GPS devices were applied to the animals which did not affect their functioning. The movements of 350 different species were analysed. All individuals were monitored for about two years, more precisely from December 19 to January 12 , the most difficult period for wild and non-wild animals, which find themselves having to undergo exaggerated sensory stimuli compared to what they can bear.
With regard to geese in particular, the scientists discovered that on New Year’s Eve, after hearing the sudden fireworks and classic bangs, the latter did not return to the pond to sleep. A classic behavior belonging to the geese species is in fact that of returning every evening to the same body of water so as to sleep on the surface and move little to save the energy they need to face the cold. Well, during the period of fireworks and barrels, the geese escaped by fleeing to more distant places and above all, distant from humans .
A long trip
In particular, it was studied that the geese moved to another dormitory , which was about 16 km away from the usual one . The night flights they face in this period can also cover extreme distances of up to 500 km. This is a behavior that seriously harms the health of the animals , since during the winter the birds try to move as little as possible to be stronger and better able to bear the cold in their search for provisions .
All this therefore translates into an enormous waste of energy for all those animals who are unexpectedly forced to undergo violent treatment for their hearing and for their heart. But that’s not all, another of the researchers’ discoveries was to see a compromised functioning of the geese even in the days following the New Year’s holidays . Since that day, in fact, the geese have never returned home. Moreover, the day after the migration they found themselves fasting because they lacked the strength to recover food to eat.
Explosions and barrels: a barbaric practice
Anyone who cares about animal health knows that the practice of generating explosions and strong lights can seriously compromise the health of some species, as well as generating great fear and disorientation. Not only dogs and cats therefore, but an infinite series of animals that need to be protected, so as not to be subjected to the usual ” New Year’s trench “.
In fact, many species are forced to abandon their permanent place to move to an unfamiliar refuge, in the cold and in the dark. Fortunately, in recent years, sensitivity in this field seems to have increased considerably, even if even today, every year, many animals have to undergo this treatment. Loving animals means understanding that some of them suffer such stress that they are never able to recover after the shock. In the meantime, we recommend not leaving the animals outside under the devastating effect of the sudden lights and the noise of barrels during the end of year celebrations.
