Your Party Isn’t Worth Their Panic

People light fireworks to celebrate. But celebration for one group should never mean devastation for another.

For other animals, fireworks are bombs. No warning. No explanation. Just terror.

Panic You Can Hear

To us, they’re dazzling and exciting. To birds, dogs, foxes, deer, and everyone else with ears, they’re explosions in the sky. Noise that triggers pure, biological panic. Their world doesn’t come with calendar invites.

Some run. Some freeze. Some try to fly Some don’t make it.

Wild animals often flee so far they end up disoriented, starving, or killed. In the Netherlands, hundreds of thousands of birds were recorded fleeing fireworks on a single night. Many never returned.

Birds have been found dead en masse, scattered across cities like confetti. Arkansas. Rome. Pick a place, pick a year.

You probably won’t see the bodies. But they’re there.

Their Stress Isn’t Festive

For days after, animals have to forage more just to recover what the fireworks stole from them: rest, energy, a sense of safety. Their immune systems weaken. Juveniles die more often. Some are left lost or alone.

The noise doesn’t just scare. It injures. Some studies suggest the shock wave itself can hurt. Others show animals crash into buildings or trees trying to escape.

And for those living with us - cats, dogs, horses - people have already seen the effect. Shaking. Screaming. Hiding. Urinating. Escape attempts. Even jumping through windows. And yet, somehow, people still argue animals are “fine” once the party’s over.

Fine isn’t cowering in a corner.

Silent Suffering, Toxic Fallout

The smoke clears, but the particles stay.

Air, water, and soil get spiked with heavy metals, perchlorates, and other toxins after a display. They enter lungs, food chains, waterways. If it harms us, imagine what it does to animals who don’t get to close the windows and stay inside.

This is poisoning the world so we can go “ooh” and “aah.”

How Many Are Harmed?

We don’t know exactly. But if a single firework can be heard up to 10km away, and large events launch hundreds, the numbers spiral quickly.

Birds. Deer. Foxes. Bats. Rodents. Insects. Frogs. Fish. Companion animals.

Each display likely harms thousands. New Year’s celebrations could reach millions. Maybe billions.

But they’re invisible to us, so we pretend they don’t count.

It's Not About Perfection

Even if we made fireworks quieter, or “greener,” we’d still be gambling with lives. There’s no solid data proving these options are harmless. Just marketing. And even the quieter ones can still scare or disorient animals - 60 decibels might be less than 150, but it’s not silent.

“Eco-friendly” fireworks still burn. Still explode. Still pollute. Slapping a green label on them doesn’t change that.

We don’t need better fireworks. We need different thinking.

Better Options Already Exist

- Drone shows: Impressive. Quieter. Reusable. But not risk-free. Best used far from habitats.

- Light kites: Genuinely low-impact. Quiet, slow, and spectacular. Should be used everywhere now.

- Anything non-explosive: Projectors. Laser shows. Lanterns. Music. Dancing. Fire rituals. Joy isn’t limited to bangs and flashes.

Let’s stop acting like blowing things up is the only way to celebrate.

What Are We Actually Celebrating?

You can still mark your wedding, your win, your new year. But if your good time requires other beings to flee, suffer, and sometimes die, it’s not a celebration. It’s domination with a glittery finish.

And if you wouldn’t set off explosives in a sanctuary or outside a hospital, don’t do it outside a forest, lake, or someone else’s home - human or not.

A Simple Principle

If someone suffers from your entertainment, it’s not harmless fun.

Fireworks are marketed as magic. But to the rest of the living world, they’re just another human indulgence that ignores everyone else.

And the worst part? 

They’re entirely optional.