Hundreds of dead birds littered the streets of Rome after an avalanche of unauthorized fireworks erupted on New Year’s Eve – a scene that animal rights activists called a “massacre”.
“It could be that they died of fear,” Loredana Diglio, spokeswoman for the International Organization for Animal Protection, told the Associated Press.
“They can fly up together and knock against each other, or hit windows or electrical wires,” Diglio said. “Let us not forget that they can also die of heart attacks.”
Residents in the Italian capital have taken up the fireworks en masse despite a city ban on the exhibitions and a curfew at 10pm due to the coronavirus pandemic – but both were ignored by many locals.
Diglio said fireworks display distress or injury to wild and domestic animals every year, and the Italian branch of the IOPA has imposed a ban on the sale of colorful explosives for personal use due to the threat to animals.
With Post threads