Celebrate Your New Year Without Animal Cruelty-Don't Use Chinese Lanterns

[Hand In Hand With Asia]

Celebrate your New Year without animal cruelty.
Chinese lanterns pose a threat to wildlife, livestock and other animals by causing injuries that lead to suffering and a slow painful death. Chinese lanterns can cause injury, suffering, and even death, through ingestion, entanglement & entrapment. Animals can eat or become caught in lantern debris in grazing vegetation, or eat lantern parts accidentally chopped into animal feed during harvest.
If an animal eats sharp lantern parts, these can tear and puncture the throat, stomach or internal organs causing internal bleeding or, in worst cases, death.
An animal that has become trapped or entangled in a fallen lantern can suffer from injury, stress and panic as it struggles to free itself, or eventually die from starvation.
There is the risk of fire caused by lanterns falling to the ground whilst alight - this can destroy habitats and set fire to animal housing, feed and bedding.
With estimates of 200,000 lanterns being released each year, we are appealing to anyone thinking of using Chinese lanterns in their celebrations to think about the effects that they could have.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that ‘biodegradable’ lanterns are safe! Bamboo can take decades to degrade and the sharp parts can cause injury to animals, plus they still pose a fire risk.