Shocking fireworks effect: How New Year's Eve endanger certain bird species?

Researchers have advised creating areas off-limits to fireworks and reducing the volume of light displays to save bird populations as its impacts can be seen for up to six miles, increasing bird flight activity, as per a study.

The widespread usage of pyrotechnics on New Year's Eve has an impact on birds up to a distance of 10km (6 miles). A worldwide team of researchers discovered how many birds take off right after the fireworks start, how far away from the pyrotechnics this happens, and which species groups primarily react using data from weather radars and bird counts.

“We already knew that many water birds react strongly, but now we also see the effect on other birds throughout the Netherlands,” says ecologist Bart Hoekstra of the University of Amsterdam. In the scientific journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, the researchers therefore argue for large fireworks-free zones.

There are typically 1,000 times as many birds in the air near the fireworks site on New Year's Eve as there are on other nights, with peak counts of 10,000 to 100,000 times the average. There is an average of at least ten times as many birds flying as usual up to 10km, while the effects are strongest within the first 5 km after pyrotechnics.

“Birds take off as a result of an acute flight response due to sudden noise and light. In a country like the Netherlands, with many wintering birds, we are talking about millions of birds being affected by the lighting of fireworks,” says Hoekstra.