MacKenzie Elmer at Voice of San Diego just brought to light that the San Diego Audubon Society is demanding the California Coastal Commission halt the SeaWorld fireworks after bird activists found dead eggs, chicks and adult elegant terns that had been washed ashore after consecutive days of displays.
Elmer reported:
Soaked carcasses of dead unborn, chick and adult elegant terns washed ashore at Kendall-Frost Marsh Reserve just days after San Diego SeaWorld and Discover Mission Bay set off well over 500 pounds of explosives over the Fourth of July weekend. Bird biologists uncovered their bodies and reported the incident to the San Diego Audubon Society, which subsequently called on the California Coastal Commission to revoke SeaWorld San Diego’s fireworks permit through most of the breeding season.
Elmer quoted Andrew Meyer, director of conservation for the San Diego Audubon Society:
“It seems like the adult terns and chicks got scared off the island. And when chicks get scared, not being good flyers, they run in groups and probably pushed many eggs into the water.”
“There are so many reasons to not have fireworks shows. They’re being replaced by drone shows anyway that have less water quality, PTSD and wildlife impacts.”
The San Diego Audubon Society sent a letter last week to the California Coastal Commission illustrating the events of the Fourth of July weekend replete with photos of the birds they claim were flying in circles above the island during fireworks displays, and photos of the carcasses discovered later.
Elmer:
Here’s what happened: On July 3, Discover Mission Bay launched an 18-minute firework show from Fiesta Island, according to NBC 7 San Diego. And the next day, SeaWorld San Diego produced a 20-minute display on July 4.
In the middle of the crossfire: the unofficial nesting ground of over 7,600 seabirds on a crescent-shaped spit of land called West Ski Island. The island isn’t protected by riprap, or piles of protective rocks and boulders, to prevent flightless chicks from running into the water, like other protected nesting habitats in Mission Bay, or by buoys to prevent watercraft from approaching too closely, Meyer said.
This is all very good reporting on a horrific situation. What Elmer go wrong is the claim that Mission Bay is San Diego’s “new battleground” in “a decades-long campaign by environmentalists to eradicate pyrotechnics in San Diego …”
The “battle” over Mission Bay is not new at all. Environmentalists and people concerned about the welfare of SeaWorld’s animals have been demanding an end to the fireworks over the West Coast’s largest aquatic park for decades.
There have petitions and petitions demanding the end to violence in the air over Mission Bay for years, for decades. For one, activists have been fighting SeaWorld for nearly a quarter of a century. Ten years ago, the Rag ran a series of profiles about the Orcas in captivity at Seaworld. Also, there’s been online petitions demanding a halt to the fireworks for ten years now. By 2021, over 13,140 people had signed the petition to stop nightly fireworks. As recently as this February 2024, our own Judi Curry announced “a new campaign” to stop the fireworks. Nothing seemed to work. In fact, one environmental group gave SeaWorld a pass early on to continue their fireworks without eco sanctions.
At any rate, here are the first pages of the Auduban Society’s letter to the Coastal Commission:
