Big Bear Fourth of July fireworks show to proceed despite concerns over bald eaglets

BIG BEAR, Calif. (KABC) — A Fourth of July fire­works show is set to be held as sched­uled in Big Bear despite con­cerns from thou­sands of peo­ple who signed a peti­tion say­ing the fire­works could have poten­tial­ly harm­ful effects on the area’s beloved res­i­dent bald eagles.

Sup­port­ers of the famous Big Bear eagle fam­i­ly cre­at­ed a peti­tion urg­ing Vis­it Big Bear to “delay or ban the annu­al 4th of July fire­works show.” The cre­ators of the peti­tion say this is for the safe­ty of Jack­ie and Shad­ow’s eaglets, Sun­ny and Giz­mo, whofledged in ear­ly June.

The peti­tion was cre­at­ed on June 24 and has gar­nered over 30,000 sig­na­tures.

It reads, in part: “Eagles do not nat­u­ral­ly fly after dark unless they are threat­ened or dis­turbed. The loud and fright­en­ing explo­sions of fire­works can spook them, caus­ing them to flee their nests, poten­tial­ly into sit­u­a­tions fraught with dan­ger.”

Despite the peti­tion, Vis­it Big Bear announced that it will be mov­ing for­ward with the 2025 fire­works show.

Vis­it Big Bear is deeply com­mit­ted to bal­anc­ing the needs of our local com­mu­ni­ty with those of our nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment,” said Travis Scott, CEO of Vis­it Big Bear. “As stew­ards of one of Cal­i­for­ni­a’s most cher­ished out­door des­ti­na­tions, we rec­og­nize that pro­tect­ing our for­est friends and wildlife habi­tats is as impor­tant as sus­tain­ing our local econ­o­my and tra­di­tions. Vis­it Big Bear strives to hon­or both.”

In its announce­ment, Vis­it Big Bear claimed that the event pro­vides a “sanc­tioned cel­e­bra­tion” that lim­its the use of ama­teur fire­works, which are ille­gal in the Big Bear Val­ley.

Friends of Big Bear Val­ley (FOBBV), the non­prof­it that runs the Big Bear eagle nest cam livestream, expressed its dis­ap­point­ment over Vis­it Big Bear’s deci­sion in a state­ment on social media.

“We have tried speak­ing with [Vis­it Big Bear], all but beg­ging, show­ing doc­u­ment­ed proof of Jack­ie and Shad­ow leav­ing the area for days, explain­ing how fire­works do major dam­age, not just to birds and wildlife, but to the lake with pol­lu­tion, the ducks and their babies, the over­all envi­ron­ment and humans breath­ing the air pol­lut­ed by the event, as well as pets and PTSD humans,” said FOBBV.

Vis­it Big Bear claims that the orga­ni­za­tions that pro­duce the fire­works show are “com­mit­ted to imme­di­ate and exten­sive clean-up efforts fol­low­ing the show to mit­i­gate debris that may land in our beau­ti­ful lake.”

FOBBV says that it gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on the effects of fire­work shows on local wildlife to the direc­tors of Vis­it Big Bear in 2023, but it claims the orga­ni­za­tion is only com­mit­ted to con­ser­va­tion when it’s “con­ve­nient or pop­u­lar.”

We under­stand that not every­one will agree with this deci­sion,” Scott said. “But we hope peo­ple see the total­i­ty of our efforts: we’re hon­or­ing tra­di­tion while evolv­ing our prac­tices. We’re pri­or­i­tiz­ing long-term part­ner­ships with sci­ence-based pro­gram­ming, and we remain open to change. Our eagles are a source of joy, pride, and iden­ti­ty here in Big Bear-and our com­mit­ment to their future is unwa­ver­ing.”

Vis­it Big Bear says the fire­works show will con­tin­ue as planned at 8:45 p.m. on July 4. The fire­works dis­play will be launched over the water and will last for under 30 min­utes.