Halloween decorations are going up all around us; jack o’lanterns, skeletons and other spooky figures provide delightfully macabre touches to our neighborhoods, but one increasingly common decoration has been targeted as dangerous to wildlife: artificial spiderwebs. The most common material is a type of polyester, similar to fiberglass or cotton in appearance, and social media this year is full of photos of various critters snared by the diaphanous sheets. Critics also point out that the material is not biodegradable and ends up in streams and animal nests, and chicks, and baby squirrels and other mammals can become entangled
The fake webbing is often placed over bushes and around windows and other places where birds land, and is a risk to birds and squirrels, as well flying insects, like moths and butterflies.
Fact checking gives credence to the warnings. Snopes.com quoted Kathryn Dudeck, the wildlife director at Georgia’s Chattahoochee Nature Center, who said the material “sticks to (birds’) feathers and then settles in between them, almost like Velcro.” Dudeck said that hummingbirds, songbirds, and even small owls are susceptible.
Fox News Digital quoted Amber Schiltz, interim division administrator of the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission’s Fish & Wildlife Education Division: “Often, the creatures moving through the bushes or trees decorated with this material can get caught, resulting in the animals dying of injury, starvation or predation unless they are rescued and rehabilitated,” Schlitz also pointed out that Halloween falls in prime migration season, so the webs also snare migratory birds on their way south.
At the Idyllwild Nature Center this Saturday for a talk about bats, both speaker Stephen Sutton and Ranger Alyson Fedrick confirmed that bats are also vulnerable to the webs. Fedrick added that owners of black cats should be extra sure to keep them inside during Halloween. Some individuals apparently think they are decorations and may snatch them.
The best advice, if you really want the look, is to us yarn and spin your own webs, or keep fake webbing indoors and reuse it next year. Inside the windows, passerby will still know your house is haunted, but critters will be safe. The webbing is not very realistic after all, and there are better ways to creep out your neighbors and passersby.
