Now that the weather has cooled, snow blankets the ground, and the calendar has flipped over to December, it’s the perfect time to start decorating our yards with festive colours and twinkling lights. After all, who doesn’t love a winter wonderland filled with sparkling lights, inflatable Santas, and dangling baubles—except, perhaps, Scrooge?
While holiday decorations bring joy to humans, they can pose risks to wildlife. For those of us living in places like Banff, Canmore, Cochrane, or other towns where wildlife is a natural part of our community, it’s important to consider the impact of our outdoor holiday displays.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to enjoy festive decorations while reducing harm to animals. Here’s how to celebrate responsibly and protect our furry and feathered neighbours.
Dangers to Wildlife
Entanglement
“During the rut, which lasts from September through December, male elk and deer become more aggressive and animated. They swing their heads, rub against trees, mark their territories, and assert dominance,” explains Nick de Ruyter, Program Director for WildSmart. “This behaviour increases the likelihood of their antlers getting tangled in loose decorations and strings of lights.”
To minimize the risk of wildlife entanglement, Nick de Ruyter suggests you hang holiday lights at least 3 meters (10 feet) above the ground. Consider placing lights on your roof or high up in trees, out of reach of deer and elk. Avoid wrapping lights around low bushes, as this can create hazards for animals passing through. Make sure light strings are securely fastened to buildings to prevent sagging. It’s also best to avoid stringing lights between trees or across open areas, as these can become traps for wandering animals. Also, Nick de Ruyter suggests waiting until after November 30 (hopefully, you have!) to put up decorations, which generally marks the end of the rutting season for local deer and elk.
For cordless options, you could decorate your windows from the inside instead of outside lights to get a lovely glow from your house without the risk of entanglement. Another option is to use laser light displays that light up your home in moving colours without hanging strings.
Another benefit of a cordless or inside window display is that your local squirrel neighbour won’t chew on your light cords, electrocuting itself and wrecking your light display.
Light Pollution
All those bright lights at night can disrupt wildlife in multiple ways. Bright lights can confuse birds, potentially causing them to collide with structures and injure themselves. Extra light can make it easier for predators to locate nocturnal prey, disrupting natural hunting patterns.
Nocturnal animals rely on rods in the back of their retinas to see in low light, giving them exceptional night vision. However, when they encounter the intense glare of your holiday light display, it can temporarily blind them. This impairment reduces their awareness of their surroundings, leading to confusion and, in some cases, fatal consequences. This disorientation is one reason nocturnal animals are more likely to be struck by cars.
The colour of your light display matters: Bright blue and white LED lights have a greater impact on wildlife than warmer colours like reds, oranges, yellows, and greens.
Keep your festive display confined to the area immediately surrounding your home, allowing animals nearby to continue hunting, foraging, and resting undisturbed. Avoid directing lights into the sky or toward forests and other natural habitats. Additionally, use filters on floodlights to minimize their impact.
So, rather than lighting up the universe like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation, consider using lights not all around your yard but restricted to your house. Also, have your lights on timers. You don’t need to keep your lights on all night. Limiting your lights to twinkling from 6 to 9 PM will help your nocturnal neighbours and keep your power bill down.
What About the Trees?
When we decorate outdoors, we often forget about the impact on our trees. Wrapping trees in lights and cords frequently causes physical damage to the trees, especially broken branches, but more worrisome is premature budding. In colder climates, the heat from the lights on deciduous trees can cause early budding, which subsequent freezes can kill, stressing the tree. Fortunately, new LED lights produce less heat than older incandescent lights, but to avoid any problems for trees, stick to decorating your house, lampposts or railings.
Limit the Plastic
It’s important to avoid using plastic decorations, not just because of the environmental harm caused during their production and disposal but also because plastic particles pose risks to wildlife even while in use.
When you think of plastic decorations, you might picture oversized inflatable Santas or snowmen displayed on rooftops or front lawns. However, it’s equally important to steer clear of items like strings of tinsel, artificial snow, and synthetic felt coverings meant to mimic snowfall on roofs. Squirrels love tinsel and often take it to line their winter nests, and some birds might mistakenly try to eat plastic berries.
Plastic debris, particularly microplastics, has devastating effects on wildlife and ecosystems. By minimizing the use of plastic in your holiday decorations, you can help reduce the amount of harmful microplastics entering the environment.
As we do in other seasons, by removing fruit, cleaning barbeques, and keeping pet food out of our yards, we also need to protect wildlife in the winter. With some forethought and planning, we can enjoy festive displays and abundant wildlife. Now, that is why we live where we do!
