Editor:
An open letter to the superintendent of Banff National Park and the mayor of Banff.
The trumpeter swan is a threatened species under the Alberta Wildlife Act. On the evening of Oct. 31, migrating trumpeter swans that stopped to rest at Vermilion Lakes were also threatened in the more immediate sense of the term, when bombs were detonated over their heads.
The birds, a family consisting of a mated pair and the one young they managed to fledge this year, arrived earlier in the day, perhaps driven into the mountains by weather conditions on their normal route further to the east. Throughout the afternoon and into the night, the swans foraged almost incessantly in a tiny, ice-free patch that allowed them access to the submergent vegetation they needed to fuel their journey.
Then the explosions began. The swans immediately ceased foraging and, amid the booms and flashes, could be seen swimming away from the disturbance. The birds appeared unsure about what to do. The ceiling was low that night and the stars, used by the birds for navigation, could not be seen. After a few minutes, however, the swans decided to risk flying blind in potentially unfamiliar territory and launched their heavy bodies into the air. A few trumpets were heard as the family flew west into the darkness perhaps never to return.
Had this taken place on some farm on New Year’s Eve, it would have been angering enough. Instead, it happened in one of only a few environmentally sensitive sites within Canada’s flagship national park, a World Heritage Site, and, one would think, the safest place in the country for a family of threatened swans. And it happened on Halloween, a day when most Canadians are thinking about trick-or-treating, attending costume parties, and making jack-o’-lanterns, not blowing things up.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve witnessed Banff National Park’s wild inhabitants fleeing for their lives during Banff’s relatively frequent fireworks displays. In 2010, I observed about 30 vocal and apparently distressed elk in the middle of one of the Vermilion Lakes following a Canada Day display.
Who knows what unseen chaos unfolds during these displays. Birds are known to abandon their nests, chicks and territories as a result of fireworks displays. In Arkansas recently, thousands of blackbirds died upon colliding with houses, cars, trees, and other objects after fireworks were exploded near their roost.
The nondegradable plastic debris and other pollutants that rain down on the town and the adjacent wetlands during the aerial bombardments are cause for concern.
Perchlorate, an oxidant used in fireworks, can inhibit thyroid function in mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians and disrupt metamorphosis in the latter. In small mammals, it can cause thyroid cancer. In one study, perchlorate levels in a lake shot up to a thousand times normal and persisted at elevated levels for nearly three months following a fireworks display.
Humans and other animals within two kilometres of displays can be exposed to extremely high levels of fine particles including trace metals such as potassium, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, barium, strontium, lead and copper. These particles may have a substantial effect on air quality 14 km or more from where displays occur (Canmore, in our case).
Little is known about the health effects of spikes of these particles, but children and people with asthma, a chemical sensitivity, or a cardiovascular disease, may be at risk.
Due to the ease with which the aforementioned metals bind with the organic matter that occurs in large quantities in wetland sediments, the wetlands surrounding Banff may be absorbing and retaining a large amount of the fallout from fireworks displays. The buildup of trace metals to toxic levels in wetland sediments is a chemical “time bomb” that poses a serious threat to wetland plants and wildlife.
With an awareness of these risks and impacts, one simply can’t justify turning a national park into a warzone three or four times a year.
Jason Rogers,
Banff
