Beaver death sparks fear over festive fireworks
After some children killed a beaver with a firecracker near Berlin, animal protectionists called for people celebrate new year without using fireworks.
“Setting off fireworks is not only incredibly bad for the environment, it is also incredibly unsettling for animals,” Hubert Weiger from the Nature Protection Society said on Monday.
While he said he had every sympathy for people wanting to celebrate the New Year”, Weiger advised people “not to waste your money on fireworks.”
Saying that people would be better donating their money to refugees, the animals rights activist said “there are already enough explosions in the world”. The calls came after a six-month-old beaver was killed on the outskirts of Berlin at the weekend when a group of children threw a firecracker into a pond.
The protected animal’s eardrum was perforated by the underwater explosion and it then drowned after suffering from shock, the Nature Protection Society said.
I’m so conflicted about this article. I hate seeing the photo of the dead beaver. I love reading that beavers are protected in Berlin. I hate reading some animal rights activist being used as a mouth piece to prevent fireworks, which the government has already been asking for already because of terror scares. I actually don’t personally like fireworks, but honestly animal rights activists are pretty despised already. Adding ‘no fireworks’ to the list is not going to improve their standing.
The strongest feeling, though, is that something about this story just feels wrong. Do beavers even have eardrums? Why didn’t the other beavers in his family also die from the loud disorienting noise? How do they know children threw in fireworks? I can’t find any other articles about the rascals being caught red-handed. Was there a necropsy performed on that beaver to show its ruptured ear drum? The results are in really fast if these were new year’s fireworks?
I am, of course, particularly interested because our own kit 2 & 3 died right after the fourth of July. We did worry about fireworks, but more about the chemical residue they leave in the water washing upstream with the high tide. Our kits didn’t drown, and no one said anything about a ruptured ear drum. But I’m going to keep asking questions.
On a brighter note this video is making the rounds again this morning, and well worth sharing. I told Rusty to get up early in April and film that lodge in Napa because this is going to be happening there too.
