Sky lanterns can be killers

Sky lanterns (often called Chinese lanterns) are lightweight, paper-covered frames which float into the air powered by the heat of a lighted fuel pad. These flying lanterns look very appealing as they rise into the night sky. Unfortunately they are a menace when they land in the countryside.

The lanterns are made of thin wood or bamboo hoops and tissue paper with the fuel unit being suspended on thin wire or string. Some packets say they are 'bio-degradable within a week'. Sadly, a week is too long and even five minutes could be too long for the life of an animal.

If the wire parts or sharp, split pieces of bamboo are eaten by grazing animals such as cattle, sheep, horses and wild deer, they can pierce the animal's gut, causing an agonising death. Chinese lanterns have already caused a number of animal fatalities. Farmers have to spend a lot of time collecting the debris to protect their livestock out in fields.

When the lanterns fall into empty grazing fields in winter or growing hayfields in summer, the coloured paper parts can bio-degrade leaving the wire and bamboo more difficult to spot. The wire and wood can be chopped up in a forage harvester and fed to housed animals the next winter resulting in more agonising deaths.

The lanterns also pose a fire risk to crops and property.

Please think twice before releasing lanterns into the sky and save any more animals a slow and painful death. You'll also be preventing unnecessary call-outs for our firemen.