Nae Fireworks Night

Last night - November 5th - we were up at Whitelee Wind Farm near Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire to support their brilliant annual ‘Nae Fireworks Night’ event.

Every year for the last few years, the brilliant Whitelee Countryside Rangers have made sure that no firework displays take place on their wind farm south of Glasgow, and have advertised to dog owners that they can bring their pups up there for a walk if they are worried about firework displays on November 5th. Their first free event attracted around 40 people, and since then the word has spread!

Around 1,000 people turned out with their dogs last night, having travelled from the various towns nearby looking for a much-needed reprieve from a distressing few days of firework displays. Visitors could meet other dog owners, use the visitors centre and café, talk to animal welfare and conservation charities including the SSPCA, the RSPB and of course Animal Concern, and go on guided walks of the wind farm, led by the brilliant rangers.

We had lots of conversations with members of the public who expressed their support for our campaign to ban public sale of fireworks around the UK.

One visitor told us of her stressful experience of unexpected fireworks around Christmas time, causing her dog to run away from home. Thankfully the pup was found and handed into the Police, who were able to reunite him with his owner. As she pointed out, that could have ended very differently.

Another person recounted her 15 years of traumatic firework seasons with her now deceased dog, who had such severe fear reactions to fireworks, he had to be medicated in advance each time, and even then it did not calm him completely. She said she hated having to do this, and worried about the risk of addiction, but felt as if she had no choice.

There were even people who had come to the event because they, themselves, suffer with post-traumatic stress - including a former police officer and car crash victim - to get away from the noise.

We spoke to so many people who had already gone through several days of horrific trauma in the week leading up to Bonfire Night, watching their companion animals and local wildlife suffer. Vomiting, diarrhoea, refusing to eat, shaking, howling and hiding were all recurring words in the conversations we had last night.

This rapid surge in popularity of this event just goes to show how needed events like this are. The sheer number of people and their animals who go through hell every time someone nearby decides to let off a firework is truly heartbreaking.

It’s for all those families who we are campaigning for a ban on category F2 and F3 fireworks from public sale across the UK. These are the types that one can readily buy from shops or online. Category F4 are already unavailable to the public, and can only be acquired by licensed professionals. Category F1 are small-scale pyrotechnics like sparklers, which we do not believe pose the same level of risk.

With the help of sympathetic MPs as well as the public, we will continue to lobby the UK Government to stop ignoring the widespread and unnecessary suffering, trauma and deaths of the animal population, as well as the distress caused to the public, several times a year at the hands of these readily available explosives.

To read more about our campaign approach, as well as see what you can do to support it, click on the button below to head to our campaign page.