Beware! Your Halloween decorations could be a nightmare for wildlife

With spooky season just on the horizon, Halloween decorations are beginning to pop up everywhere—tombstones, pumpkins, and of course, tons and tons of fake spiderwebs. Amidst all the autumnal celebrations, it’s easy to forget those who not only can’t join in on the celebration, but might even be threatened by the decorations: wildlife. 

While Jennifer Bloodgood, a Cornell University wildlife veterinarian, hasn’t personally witnessed it before, she tells Popular Science that she agrees with the dangers of some Halloween decorations. 

“Birds would definitely be the major concern,” she says, referring specifically to fake spider webs. “But other potentials would be small mammals if they [the spiderwebs] are close to the ground. So, you know, little mice or voles or moles or even slightly bigger animals, potentially possums.” 

Bloodgood explains that fake spiderwebs remind her of mist nets, used to purposefully catch birds and bats, that unknowingly fly into them. In fact, these decorations are problematic if people hang them where birds or bats normally fly, including in the middle of a yard or on a tree, as opposed to up against the house itself. 

[ Related: Meet the engineer who crafted a genius animatronic ‘Ratatouille’ Halloween costume. ]

Bloodgood believes it’s possible that wildlife might even risk ingesting this web material. They might mistake it for a foraging item, or the web might be close to a foraging item. For example, an animal might try to eat another animal entangled in the fake web, thus accidentally ingesting both of them.

If you live close to a road in an area with wildlife, other decorations that could cause problems are real pumpkins. They could entice animals to cross the road, thus putting them in harm’s way. Bloodgood herself doesn’t put out real pumpkins anymore, because they would end up as rabbit or deer food.

As far as her advice goes, the closer you can keep your decorations to your house, the better. “Things that are in your yard are potentially a little bit more dangerous,” Bloodgood explains. She adds that “being careful if you have wildlife like that around and avoiding putting enticing things out near roadways,” can also help the animals around you. 

While she has never dealt with Halloween decorations causing trouble for wildlife, Bloodgood says that during her time working with marine mammals in Alabama, her team came across “lots of weird stuff in and on animals,” such as balloons. 

The last thing we want is for our festivities to add more weird things in or on wildlife.