The annual fireworks show that caps Fourth of July celebrations at Big Bear Lake could pose a threat to its beloved bald eagle family, animal activists say.
The fireworks show explodes over the lake every Independence Day. At the celebration Friday, July 4, the fireworks show is expected to run for 30 minutes starting at 8:45 p.m.
According to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the eagle family it monitors via two web cams remains in the area, with eaglets Sunny and Gizmo spotted circling over the lake on Friday. Their nest is not far from the lake.
“The fireworks don’t really have a benefit other than people ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ at the sparklies,” Sandy Steers, Friends of Big Bear Valley executive director, said Tuesday, July 1. “For that 30 minutes of people liking to watch it, it creates a lot more devastation than most people are aware of.”
Steers said the nonprofit has recorded Jackie and Shadow during previous Independence Day celebrations — the nesting pair leaves their roost, tree or nest as soon as the fireworks start. They usually don’t return for a few days. That could be especially troublesome for Sunny and Gizmo, the eaglets, who are not fully trained or ready to completely fend for themselves. Losing their parents for a few days jeopardizes their development at a critical time, according to Steers.
Fireworks also pollute the lake, Steers said, and the loud noises startle wildlife in the area.
To help advocate for the eagles and the lake habitat, Friends of Big Bear Valley turned to the massive following they’ve cultivated online. The eagles have a growing fan base with hundreds of thousands of people flocking to a 24/7 livestream of the nest perched in a pine tree overlooking the lake, watching the lives of Jackie, Shadow and their chicks unfold in real time.
A petition online created a week ago calls for the cancellation of the fireworks show for the sake of the eagles. By midday Tuesday, the petition had 30,277 signatures.
“As a lover of all nature, I am sad to see the devastation created for 30 minutes of instant gratification, usually forgotten within hours,” Steers said in a Friends of Big Bear Valley Facebook post linking to the petition.
Travis Scott, CEO of Visit Big Bear, a tourism marketing organization in Big Bear Valley, said the July Fourth fireworks have been presented for decades with the help of the Big Bear Fire Protection District to mitigate impacts on wildlife, including centering the show in the middle of the lake to increase the space around the fireworks and keep it as far from the eagle nest as possible.
“We’re following the best of protocols,” Scott said. “We are not unlike any other California Alpine destination, from Lake Tahoe to Lake Arrowhead, that all have firework shows and eagles. Our eagles are just more famous … and we all put the utmost care and understanding that there is some displacement, but humans and nature have to coexist.”
According to Scott, many of those signing the Friends of Big Bear Valley petition live outside the area.
“This is something that our community, Big Bear Lake and Big Bear Valley, has chosen to go forward with. This is not a decision that only Visit Big Bear makes. This is (a decision) that is made by our community,” Scott said.
“We are doing this as safely and as responsibly as we can,” he added. “We do know we can’t make everybody happy, but we hope to have a great Fourth of July.”