Summary

A baby red panda named Roxie at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland died from “stress caused by fireworks” after choking on her vomit, just days after her mother’s sudden death.

The incident, occurring around the U.K.’s Bonfire Night celebrations, has led to renewed calls for stricter fireworks regulations.

A petition with over a million signatures urging restrictions on public fireworks sales was submitted to the U.K. government.

Edinburgh recently implemented limited fireworks control zones, but animal welfare advocates argue for broader measures to prevent similar tragedies.

20 points

That’s sad. Why are they selling baby red pandas?

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18 points

they can’t eat all of them before the best before date

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1 point

Sale of Fireworks

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4 points
*
2 points

Hold my flashbang, I’m going in!

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94 points

I’m dubious. Mom dies suddenly, then baby dies suddenly after choking on it’s own vomit. Yeah, no, let’s blame the fireworks. Surely, nothing else could be the cause of Red Panda deaths at this zoo.

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2 points
Deleted by creator
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42 points

I had a whole thing earlier but was mistaken, the baby was 3 months old not a newborn. Either way, I still don’t doubt that fireworks could easily stress out a very young animal and be the tipping point of their health.

I’m not sure what could motivate them to make a grand conspiracy against fireworks, rather than the more likely result of them being exhausted and frustrated caretakers who, like any pet owner, probably spent that evening trying to calm the panda down only to watch it panic until it died. Stress vomiting isn’t really rare for animals on the 4th of July. It’s just the extreme end of stress.

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17 points

I’m not saying that it’s a conspiracy against fireworks, but possibly a problem with the habitat, food, or something else that would cause big issues for the zoo if discovered. The fireworks were convenient. I have zero evidence for this other than the fact that a lot of zoos are complete cesspools, and so I typically don’t trust “suddenly died” followed three days later by another “suddenly died” regardless of how many fireworks were launched off.

Also, there is this line:

Roxie had access to her den but the frightening noises seem to have been too much for her.

Seems like the zoo just left a weak animal to suffer instead of taking precautions to assure that the panda was placed in a safe location. It makes me doubt that anyone was even there, and that the zookeepers returned the following day to a dead red panda and tried to cover it up.

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7 points

That’s fair, I definitely jumped to the “they wanna take away fireworks” conspiracy on my end, too much arguing on the Internet for me this week >.<

I do hope they look into it. I just know how freaked out my pets have been in the past, inconsolable at times, so the fireworks being a real factor wouldn’t surprise me. I’d hope they would have meds to help calm the animals, but I wonder if they were too young for them, or had a dosage issue.

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12 points

“I have zero evidence for this…”

Says it all really.

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9 points

Whether or not it was the direct cause in this case, fireworks cause a lot of animals a lot of stress and deaths do come from it.

I don’t see why anyone needs to be able to buy explosives to use at home, firework shows should be organised in set locations and should use low noise fireworks as much as possible.

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0 points

Maybe they should have called some vet experts to investigate. Oh wait that is exactly what they did but I am sure people on the internets know more about animals. Not a big fan of zoos but people who armchair are magnitudes worse.

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0 points

They didn’t call in an outside vet to investigate. The fucking zoo keepers are vets. The zoo keepers are telling you what happened. You can believe them or not, but it’s not accountability.

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5 points
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Check under the vet team here:

https://www.rzss.org.uk/conservation/meet-the-team

Professors, veterinary surgeons, veterinary nurses etc. Edinburgh zoo is not just your run of the mill local village zoo. So sorry buddy, I am sure you will understand if I still trust the word of these people on the matter and not you, a random person with distaste against zoos (not a big fan either to be honest). I mean this is not just any field as well, this is zoology. People usually get into it because they love animals and such. It is not completely impossible for someone in this field to lie to cover up but now it is just your personal distaste against zoos and human kind vs several very well trained people on the field… As I said, I am not a big fan of zoos either and somewhat undecided about conservatories (which is what “Edinburgh Zoo” actually is) but that does not make people working there terrible lying scum bags.

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2 points

And no medical professional has ever been found to be biased in their opinion. And no reporter ever misrepresented what someone said to make a more sensational article. Stress is not a well understood thing. There is no test for confirming the source of stress. And the vets aren’t saying their is. Did the fireworks contribute, sure I would trust a vet who says that, and it was probably what they actually said. But a babies Mom dieing, and not being there to comfort the baby from the stress of fireworks is probably a bigger contributor. Also read a little further down where the expert says we can’t rule out fireworks as the cause. That is totally different. Seems like the vets don’t agree.

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2 points

right and random strangers on the internet are completely unbiased and generally reasonable? It does not give one enough reason to completely disregard experts’opinions. vets are saying that it probably is a contributing factor whereas people in this thread are claiming that it is the zoo who is trying to cover up for bad conditions and negligence in the zoo. tell me which one sounds more reasonable?

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114 points

So the zoo loses 2 red pandas in a couple days and instead of investigating the conditions of their care, they blame it on the public being loud?

There are easy ways to protect your pets from fireworks noise so this stinks of scapegoating for their own terrible care.

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15 points

Has the mother also died from early Fireworks? Since when do fireworks cause vomiting…

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44 points
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Stress can cause vomiting, hell it can cause it in humans!

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-13 points
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Deleted by creator
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14 points

For a second I thought this was Reddit with all the armchairing. Holy crap

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5 points

Armchair zoologist, that’s a new one to add to the bingo board

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7 points

Since vet experts claim that they do.

"Veterinary experts at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland announced on Wednesday that a 3-month-old panda named Roxie died “due to stress caused by fireworks being let off across the city centre.”

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2 points
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Haven’t you heard? Expertise doesn’t matter anymore, and any rando on the internet’s view is just as valid as an expert’s (and my buddy’s view on it is even more valid).

I truly wish that I could say this was a joke.

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13 points

Also, why ban something when you can just have area bans?

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7 points

Even just bringing it an age limit is a good start. loads of kids buy tons of these fireworks after guy Fawkes and diwali because they are cheaper so it is more like two weeks of unending fireworks rather than two nights.

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-1 points

Yeah this sounds REAL off.

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25 points

Red panda infants are pretty fragile and often don’t survive in captivity. I would assume the mom passed away from complications due to birthing, but it could be anything.

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6 points

instead of investigating the conditions

Yea they should have sent some vet experts to investigate. Oh wait…

"Veterinary experts at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland announced on Wednesday that a 3-month-old panda named Roxie died “due to stress caused by fireworks being let off across the city centre.”

Ofcourse they could always just be there to burry evidence to further their holy crusade against fireworks!

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-1 points

Ofcourse they could always just be there to burry evidence to further their holy crusade against fireworks! hide negligence.

Ftfy

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7 points
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yea with a bunch of veterinary surgeons, nurses and zoology professors at their service, I am sure they were still not able to come up with a fake reason that your keen eyes were not able to spot immediately.

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-1 points
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Exactly. All they had to do was buy a couple of earplugs. And they call themselves professionals… Hah.

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4 points

Man, people really do love their fireworks… Noise, light and pollution, Yay!

I wonder how many of you guys complain about cars for the same reasons…

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4 points

Don’t forget the fires and injuries!

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2 points
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Over here, it’s pretty rare to have a car that causes a lot of noise.
A few days ago, there was a car crossing me that was quieter than my cycle’s hub. And it was an ICE.
Only the “sports” cars and bikes tend to be loud and thanks to petroleum prices (and the vehicle’s price itself) are much less in number.

But loudspeakers and fireworks, I cannot bear.

Air pollution? Mine is a smoker’s country. People like me are lucky not to be handed the Darwin award.

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0 points
0 points

Coming to answer after being woken up by a neighbour’s after-party noise, after a few hours of inadequate sleep caused due to noise from said party. And it’s half past ten. On top of that, I have had a bad sleep for the past 2 weeks due to continuous bombardment (no, that’s just Diwali) for the past 2 weeks.

And even from the video, you may notice - It’s less about cars, but that people are loud:

  1. People like car go vroom vroom
  2. People like farting motorcycles and most of them over here, buy non-farting motorbikes and get them modified to get them to fart. Same for farting cars. Only a few cars that fart by default. Mist of the farters are modded.
  3. The horn problem is also more about people and less about traffic necessity. On top of that, the sound-proof cabins make it hard for car drivers to hear cycle bells. I recently got a near miss from that.
  4. And guess what, that area also gets loud when there’s a party
  5. Tire noise, I’d rather have that. How else would I know when there is a car behind me, before they blast the horn? In fact, me detecting the car first, looking back to see their lane and giving way, has prevented a lot of potential horns. But yes, if the low sound roads and the porous roads that help in rainwater infiltration (causing groundwater replenishment and reducing sinkhole probability) are the same, then I would definitely be for it.

Air pollution:


Taken from 9:13 in the video.

  • Roads have been pretty breathable [1] ever since Catalytic converters and I have been mostly fine, breathing heavily while running over 35.
  • There is another kind of farters. The vehicles who don’t get proper maintenance and start puffing white smoke, filling the road air with it, making me have to take a stop or hastily overtake them.

There is just one case, where I would look differently and that is the case of tuk-tuks and mopeds, which turns out to be out of necessity and lack of money. Because those have to be cheap, to cater to the requirement of the target customer, reduced noise comes lower in the list of priorities.


CC BY-NC-SA 4.0


  1. at least as long as you are only considering the vehicle smoke and not the smoke coming out of smouldering sticks in the rider’s/driver’s mouths ↩︎

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3 points

People can get really defensive and hostile about fireworks and I’ve never really understood it.

I quit smoking at the beginning of this summer because it’s a terrible habit that’s inconsiderate to others at best(and bad for me too). So I quit. The thing is I actually liked smoking…Nicotine is something else(I used nicotine gum for anyone wondering)

So if I can accept that about smoking, why is it so hard for folks to understand that fireworks, while enjoyable, can have detrimental effects to other living creatures nearby? Some of whom might be people? It’s just really strange to me.

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13 points

😭

So susceptible to stres. Zoos often lack enough cover and “hide away” spots for them. Poor thing

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