Please think twice about releasing sky lanterns. They might look beautiful and seem harmless when you light the flame that lifts them into the air, but they have a deadly effect on animals and the environment. RSPCA is warning people not to use them.
As you can see in the picture, the innocent barn owl became trapped in the wire and paper and couldn’t get out, and was found dead on the ground. Besides trapping and entangling wildlife, they also pose a hazard because animals may eat parts of the lantern, and sharp wires can cut and puncture an animal’s throat or stomach, causing internal bleeding. When an animal is entangled in a fallen lantern, it can suffer endless stress struggling to get free, and starve to death in the process.
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The RSPCA listed some of the other animals killed by sky lanterns:
- A foal had to be put to sleep after his legs were so badly injured from bolting through a fence having been terrified by a lantern.
- Holly, a nine-month-old goat died after the frame of a lantern punctured her throat.
- A farmer in Chester told how a cow died when the wire from a sky lantern punctured her oesophagus after ingestion, saying ‘in effect she spent a long, painful 48 hours suffocating on her own feed.’
When the lanterns (sometimes called Chinese Lanterns) fall into the sea, they also endanger marine life. And besides being harmful to wildlife, the lanterns can cause wildfires if they land on the ground while still burning, and they litter wherever they land because even though they are often marketed as “biodegradable” or “earth- friendly,” but both are untrue. Sky lanterns are made with treated paper, wires and/or a bamboo ring.
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Additionally, landowners have called for a ban following cases of livestock being injured or killed from eating lantern parts that have accidentally been chopped into animal feed during harvest or getting caught in wire frames that have landed in fields.
Similar to released helium balloons, sky lanterns all return to earth as litter. They can travel for miles and ALWAYS land as dangerous litter. Sky lanterns have caused huge structure fires and wildfires. As previously mentioned, this flaming aerial trash has caused serious burns to humans and killed animals who eat them or become entangled in their fallen remains.
Entire countries have banned the use of sky lanterns, including Argentine, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Spain, Germany and parts of Canada.
In the USA, bans include Alaska, California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Other states, including Kansas and Missouri and the New York Division of Fire Prevention and Control, are also looking into adopting changes to fire codes to regulate the use of sky lanterns.
The FAA has even raised concerns over the use of floating lanterns as they can be sucked into aircraft engines.
