The cost of fireworks

IN TWO hours on New Year’s Eve Hassan, a man who works with Community-Led Animal Welfare (CLAW), took five trembling, terrified dogs into his shack (he lives in a settlement south of Johannesburg).

The fireworks that had started early in the evening had spurred these animals into panicky flight.

I happen to be friends of a director of CLAW, so when I hear people on Talk Radio 702 say that “The SPCA received 20 calls about stray animals before nine o’clock”, I know that this is just a drop in the ocean.

There are several other animal welfare organisations which also take calls throughout the night and rush to the rescue of dogs who’ve leapt through barbed wire fences or even plate glass windows to escape the terrifying noise.

My friend never gets to greet the New Year with a bottle of bubbly and maudlin singing of Auld Lang Syne – she’s likely to be trying to tempt a frightened stray animal off the highway, or bandaging injured legs or noses.

“We are inundated with stray and injured animals today, and all of last week – last month – hundreds of pet owners from Braamfisherville, Matholiesville and Sol Plaatjie begged us to take in their animals,” she says.

“We have to have staff sleeping in the clinic on New Year’s Eve, just to make sure that the sick animals do not suffer seizures from stress.” 

I’m wary of fireworks, for two reasons: one, like many people I have an animal who reacts with terror (and none of the remedies offered by vets, as they will tell you, are foolproof, unless you are willing to risk sedation to the point of anaesthesia); and two: when I was a child, a little girl in our neighbourhood was badly injured by a firework (she lost an eye), which left a lasting impression.

But setting my own reactions aside, I can’t help but see that there’s something of a practical problem here: animal welfare organisations have shrinking resources (like many NGOs, they’ve been hit hard by the economic crisis) and yet they have to devote a lot of time and money to rescuing the animal fallout of these occasions, both domestic and wild.

Yes, wild animals suffer badly too. In Behavioural Ecology, October 21 2011, Dutch scientists wrote of disturbances to wild birds alone: “If we extrapolate this disturbance outside of the radar measurement area, we expect that hundreds of thousands of waterfowl that regularly overwinter in the Netherlands are disturbed and take flight as an immediate behavioral response to New Year’s Eve fireworks.”

In 2010, thousands of red-winged blackbirds fell out of the sky dead in Arkansas, a mass death thought to be the result of New Year’s Eve fireworks.

In addition, fireworks cause human injury every year – what are the added costs to our emergency services, public and private hospitals and, ultimately, families which have to live with the almost inevitable consequences of mutilation (such as loss of fingers) or disfigurement?

I understand that we can’t ban fireworks – people want and demand their right to enjoy the thrill on special occasions. But would it not diminish the resources wasted on coping with the results if we at the very least enforced the regulations and by-laws that do exist?

This year, for example, one person I know asked that the Metro Police in Johannesburg clamp down on firework sales at major intersections, and got a cold shoulder. Fireworks sold in the open air are a direct contravention of the national Explosives Act – and are actively dangerous.

“Any seller of fireworks must be in possession of a current licence issued by the Chief Inspector of the Department of Explosives. This licence (often referred to as a permit) is not transferable.

"That is, a shop with a permit to sell fireworks may not remove stock to a market or roadside and then claim ‘We have a permit’. The licence refers to the premises stated on this permit,” notes the SPCA.

Animal welfare people will tell you that recent years have seen a flood of fireworks, and they ask: who is making money off of them? Are all the premises (shops alongside fast food stores in Soweto, for example) safe, inspected regularly and licensed? And is the taxman getting the tax off these sales?

Another person asked that the timing of fireworks be policed. In Johannesburg, as in many major cities, by-laws actually permit people to set off fireworks at certain times, for example, New Year’s Eve from 23:00 to 01:00 and New Year’s Day from 19:00 to 22:00.

Eleven days, with time periods of about three hours each: that seems like ample opportunity for firework displays – some with dubious justification. I thought the Jewish holiday Lag B’Omer was associated with bonfires, not fireworks? And why on earth do South Africans celebrate a 400-year-old plot to assassinate the British king?

Nevertheless, year in and year out, the bangs start at least three hours beforehand, sometimes days in advance.

We’re told that the people tasked with policing fireworks and noise and other such by-laws have better things to do. If that’s so, perhaps the job should be given the resources it needs – after all, it’s this attitude of “don’t bother with the small crimes” that leads to rampant disregard of the law.

But in any event, I disagree. “If we can pull off the World Cup 2010, why can’t we do this?” asks my friend. “All it takes is a little planning.”

 - Fin24

*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.