The San Diego Audubon Society calls for SeaWorld fireworks to end when dead eggs, chicks and adult elegant terns washed ashore after consecutive days of displays.
By Mackenzie Elmer, Voice of San Diego
The latest in a decades-long campaign by environmentalists to eradicate pyrotechnics in San Diego has a new battleground: Mission Bay.
Soaked carcasses of dead unborn, chick and adult elegant terns washed ashore at Kendall-Frost Marsh Reserve just days after San Diego SeaWorld and Discover Mission Bay set off well over 500 pounds of explosives over the Fourth of July weekend. Bird biologists uncovered their bodies and reported the incident to the San Diego Audubon Society, which subsequently called on the California Coastal Commission to revoke SeaWorld San Diego’s fireworks permit through most of the breeding season.
“It seems like the adult terns and chicks got scared off the island,” said Andrew Meyer, director of conservation for the San Diego Audubon Society. “And when chicks get scared, not being good flyers, they run in groups and probably pushed many eggs into the water.”
The San Diego Audubon Society sent a letter last week to the California Coastal Commission illustrating the events of the Fourth of July weekend replete with photos of the birds they claim were flying in circles above the island during fireworks displays, and photos of the carcasses discovered later.
“There are so many reasons to not have fireworks shows. They’re being replaced by drone shows anyway that have less water quality, PTSD and wildlife impacts,” said Meyer.
Here’s what happened: On July 3, Discover Mission Bay launched an 18-minute firework show from Fiesta Island, according to NBC 7 San Diego. And the next day, SeaWorld San Diego produced a 20-minute display on July 4.
In the middle of the crossfire: the unofficial nesting ground of over 7,600 seabirds on a crescent-shaped spit of land called West Ski Island. The island isn’t protected by riprap, or piles of protective rocks and boulders, to prevent flightless chicks from running into the water, like other protected nesting habitats in Mission Bay, or by buoys to prevent watercraft from approaching too closely, Meyer said.
“We’re concerned with the high frequency of the excessive 150 fireworks shows during spring and summer coinciding with seabird breeding and the proximity of the shows to seabird breeding colonies,” the letter reads.
The Audubon Society included photos of “panic flights of huge flocks of terns of 5,000-7,000 flying around during and after the show notably on July 4,” in their letter.
Panic flights, Meyer said, are when a colony takes flight together out of fear of a predator or intrusion – terns take flight and rotate in a gyre above the island when boats are too close.
On July 6, bird biologists uncovered bird corpses during a routine fish seining – or netting – on the shores of Mission Bay’s last piece of its natural wetland habitat.
Tracy Spahr, a spokesperson for SeaWorld San Diego, said their fireworks displays are monitored and regulated by multiple government agencies including the Coastal Commission.
“As one of the largest animal rescue organizations in the world, SeaWorld’s mission is to help, protect and care for animals,” Spahr wrote.
A spokesperson for Discover Mission Bay said their July 3 show is an annual tradition dating back more than 50 years.
“Discover Mission Bay secured necessary permits for the July 3 display and contracted with a professional fireworks vendor and appropriate security to ensure a safe holiday celebration consistent with the city’s process and requirements,” wrote Stephanie Saathoff on behalf of Mission Bay Lessees Association at Discover Mission Bay.
The history of tension between San Diego’s fireworks producers and environmentalists is long. Coast Law Group and Coast Environmental Rights Foundation sued more than 15 years ago to halt fireworks shows in La Jolla, which resulted in more oversight of fireworks impact to water quality. The Animal Protection and Rescue League sued a group behind fireworks displays in La Jolla to end fireworks at La Jolla Cove near a sea lion rookery, according to the Union-Tribune.
La Jolla, home to a state-protected marine reserve, eventually replaced fireworks with a drone show. The La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club hosted drone shows for the past two years, citing that these displays have “minimum impact on our environment.”
San Diego Audubon Society said it first noticed groups of seabirds using West Ski Island in 2020, when beaches were largely closed to humans. None of the species nesting there are endangered, but those that washed ashore dead this month were the near-threatened elegant terns, a more skittish species than others, Meyer said.
In 2021, some 2,000 elegant terns abandoned their nesting island at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach after a drone entered a prohibited area and crashed, scaring off the would-be parents, according to the Orange County Register.
Meyer said more disturbances are on the horizon before the nesting season ends on Sept. 15. A kind of Formula 1 for powerboats returns to Mission Bay for the World Series of Powerboat Racing from Sept. 13 to 15. Audubon would like race leadership to postpone the race again, at least until nesting season ends.
San Diego Bayfair, which promotes the powerboat competition, did not respond to a request for comment in time for this article.
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