Baby red panda dies due to 'stress caused by fireworks,' renewing calls to ban their public sale
Baby red panda dies due to 'stress caused by fireworks,' renewing calls to ban their public sale
A baby red panda has died due to “stress caused by fireworks” after choking on her own vomit just five days after her mother died, according to an animal rights group.
Summary
A baby red panda named Roxie at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland died from “stress caused by fireworks” after choking on her vomit, just days after her mother’s sudden death.
The incident, occurring around the U.K.’s Bonfire Night celebrations, has led to renewed calls for stricter fireworks regulations.
A petition with over a million signatures urging restrictions on public fireworks sales was submitted to the U.K. government.
Edinburgh recently implemented limited fireworks control zones, but animal welfare advocates argue for broader measures to prevent similar tragedies.
So the zoo loses 2 red pandas in a couple days and instead of investigating the conditions of their care, they blame it on the public being loud?
There are easy ways to protect your pets from fireworks noise so this stinks of scapegoating for their own terrible care.
Red panda infants are pretty fragile and often don’t survive in captivity. I would assume the mom passed away from complications due to birthing, but it could be anything.
Also, why ban something when you can just have area bans?
Yeah this sounds REAL off.
I'm dubious. Mom dies suddenly, then baby dies suddenly after choking on it's own vomit. Yeah, no, let's blame the fireworks. Surely, nothing else could be the cause of Red Panda deaths at this zoo.
I had a whole thing earlier but was mistaken, the baby was 3 months old not a newborn. Either way, I still don't doubt that fireworks could easily stress out a very young animal and be the tipping point of their health.
I'm not sure what could motivate them to make a grand conspiracy against fireworks, rather than the more likely result of them being exhausted and frustrated caretakers who, like any pet owner, probably spent that evening trying to calm the panda down only to watch it panic until it died. Stress vomiting isn't really rare for animals on the 4th of July. It's just the extreme end of stress.
I'm not saying that it's a conspiracy against fireworks, but possibly a problem with the habitat, food, or something else that would cause big issues for the zoo if discovered. The fireworks were convenient. I have zero evidence for this other than the fact that a lot of zoos are complete cesspools, and so I typically don't trust "suddenly died" followed three days later by another "suddenly died" regardless of how many fireworks were launched off.
Also, there is this line:
Roxie had access to her den but the frightening noises seem to have been too much for her.
Seems like the zoo just left a weak animal to suffer instead of taking precautions to assure that the panda was placed in a safe location. It makes me doubt that anyone was even there, and that the zookeepers returned the following day to a dead red panda and tried to cover it up.
Whether or not it was the direct cause in this case, fireworks cause a lot of animals a lot of stress and deaths do come from it.
I don't see why anyone needs to be able to buy explosives to use at home, firework shows should be organised in set locations and should use low noise fireworks as much as possible.
I mean, if you've ever had a pet during the 4th of July you know stress responses range from hiding and being generally skittish to literally stress vomiting or running around the house in a panic. That kind of stress for a newborn animal just a few days old could quite easily kill it.
As for the mom, who just gave birth, a very risky thing for most animals...
Look I'm not saying it's impossible but what's more likely. An animal died after giving birth (common) and the newborn panda died during a very stressful event while it didn't have a mother so was likely even more stressed? Fireworks probably just exacerbated a terrible situation for the baby.
Or some grand conspiracy by all the employees of the place to cover up, checks notes red panda deaths, and, checks notes again wage war on the fireworks industry?
It's likely the caretakers had been fighting to keep the baby alive for days after its mother died, and fireworks happened noticeably stressing out the fragile panda even more, and they were incredibly sad and angry that something as stupid as fireworks was the tipping point for the life of this baby animal.
That’s sad. Why are they selling baby red pandas?
they can't eat all of them before the best before date
Sale of Fireworks
Hold my flashbang, I'm going in!
😭
So susceptible to stres. Zoos often lack enough cover and "hide away" spots for them. Poor thing
Man, people really do love their fireworks... Noise, light and pollution, Yay!
I wonder how many of you guys complain about cars for the same reasons...
Don't forget the fires and injuries!
Over here, it's pretty rare to have a car that causes a lot of noise.
A few days ago, there was a car crossing me that was quieter than my cycle's hub. And it was an ICE.
Only the "sports" cars and bikes tend to be loud and thanks to petroleum prices (and the vehicle's price itself) are much less in number.But loudspeakers and fireworks, I cannot bear.
Air pollution? Mine is a smoker's country. People like me are lucky not to be handed the Darwin award.
A lot of people in the comment here are being pretty obtuse, I'm doubtful many are even from the UK and understand the scale of celebrations with Guy Fawks and Divali being so close together this year
We’re super cute, so you’d expect that people would want to keep us around, but our existence is still endangered. Please don’t scare us to death.
Signed:
- A fuzzy red panda
I'm glad to hear these little red dudes aren't extinct yet, tbh.
Says it was the "fireworks causing stress" that killed it not imprisoning a wild animal in a foreign environment. I am having a hard time blaming the fireworks here.
Fireworks and red pandas have both existed at the same time for hundreds of years. Red pandas first discovered in 1825 by a French zoologist. One would assume it didn't just blink into existence (however, I can't prove it). Fireworks came about around 200 BC.
One would presume that there's been a lot of overlap.
It's possible the fireworks exacerbated a problem but it's not the root cause.
Why can’t they put them in a sound safe zone till the fireworks dissipate? This zoo is incompetent and should be investigated
Or, maybe fireworks should just not be a thing.
Because a lot of idiots keep shooting fireworks even though the day they're supposed to be used on has not yet come or has long passed. Here, they're supposed for New Year's Eve. The first one this autumn went off sometime in September. The last one usually goes off sometime in February. What are the zookeepers supposed to do?