Spare Me and the Big Bear Bald Eagles The 4th of July Fireworks
In a world racing towards AI and amusing itself with CGI, the sights, sounds, and smells of fireworks still stirs the mortal soul...Too much so, for some
This piece also appears at Ordinary Times
Symbolism is a hell of a drug.
American feelings of patriotism, especially around the 4th of July holiday celebrating independence, always comes with heavy doses of symbolism. Flags, slogans, bunting for the old-school aesthetic minded folks, songs, parades, holidays, star-spangled sales events, the list of American symbolism is nigh endless across the fruited plain. Flying high above all the other symbols is the Bald Eagle, haliaeetus leucocephalus, official bird of the United States since…
2024.
That’s right, red blooded Americans, the Bald Eagle has been the national bird of the United States — officially anyway — for only 190 days as of this writing. To be fair, the symbolism of the bald eagle dates to at least the revolution, and the version holding an olive branch and thirteen arrows in the raptor’s mighty claws has been the Official Seal of the United States of America since 1782. Nearly 250 years of branding, mythologizing, and assuming meant the bald eagle was functionally the official bird before it was officially the official bird. And the famous bald eagle scream from film, tv, gaming, memes, and GIFs everywhere? That’s actually a red-tailed hawk scream dubbed over the Official American Bird because it sounds cooler.
Tradition and symbolism and assumptions are powerful things, things that sometimes lead folks to think some things are so that just aren’t so.
While no longer endangered as a species, and though still protected by law, bald eagles are nonetheless just as much subject to threats both natural and manmade as everything else on the planet is. Thus it is that the oldest of American symbols has become a flashpoint for modern social media attention over celebratory bombs bursting in air nearby.
The Friends of Big Bear Valley Eagle’s Nest Cam has been a worldwide phenomenon in recent months. The paired eagles were far from an overnight success story though. Jackie, the female and believed to be the first locally hatched bald eagle, became an internet star when she nested on a live stream camera equipped perch 145 feet up in a Jeffrey pine tree overlooking Big Bear Lake. After losing her first mate, Shadow came along and the bonded pair have been Big Bear locals and internet sensations ever since.
Jackie and Shadow’s story could fit in any genre, from Homeric epic to a Netflix-and-chill melodrama. Two different mates, more than a dozen laid eggs, the heartbreak of only 5 hatching and only three of those becoming hatchlings to mind, predators, weather, all of it in high definition thanks to a partnership with the US Forest Service and the technical marvel of a solar powered webcam half a football field up in a tree. The hatchlings in 2023 became an American sensation.
The 2025 hatchlings, two of which survived to fledging (the technical term for learning to fly) have become a worldwide viral moment.
What had mostly been a niche webcam and Facebook page has exploded into a worldwide nexus of bird loving folks. The YouTube and Facebook pages require constant moderating and have engagement that would be the envy of any website or brand. The images of the dutiful parents riding out a blizzard atop the three eggs was a great drama that went viral. The heartbreaking loss when one of the hatchlings didn’t survive, and the process where Jackie had to carefully remove the departed little one only when she was good and ready to let it go. The delivery of fish to increasingly growing baby bald eagles. The clumsy play of black fuzzy heads years away from the signature white, but with comically oversized talons Gizmo and Sunny would eventually grow into. The revelation that both growing eagles were female. The tantalizing anticipation watching for, and rapturous viewing of, the first flights. First Sunny soared off into the sky and then Gizmo slipped on one branch, grabbed another, then flew from the nest. The relief when both returned and settled into a rhythm of coming and going from the nest.
That rhythm slowly becomes longer and longer time periods away from the camera until the eventual day they do not return at all. Right now Gizmo and Sunny are still dependent on Jackie and Shadow for food as they learn to hunt themselves. They have moved from feeding in the nest to feeding in other nearby trees as the young eagles prepare to eventually venture off on their own.
And at this crucial moment, the symbolism of Independence Day makes its annual booming appearance in Big Bear. The local community counts on and looks forward to the event. The fans of the eagles, especially the newest fans of the newest eagles, are not.
Big Bear the town expects 100k+ visitors for the 4th of July spectacular, capped off by a professional fire works display from a barge in the lake for what is described as both “the largest in SoCal” and also “under 30 minutes.” The distinction of professional is important as amateur fireworks are illegal in the Big Bear Valley particularly and most of California in general. In trying to answer the concerns, the Big Bear Fire Authority explained how they had exceeded the safety guidelines for the extravaganza. Find the right local official or voice, and there will be comments that advocates tend to be more vocal and more conservation-y when it is most opportune. There is always a push-pull in areas that depend on natural beauty for tourists and finding the balance between the two.
But the fame of the flying wildlife has cranked up the controversy this year as Big Bear wrestles with a debate that has grown over the rest of the country anytime celebratory explosions are involved: increasing awareness that the bursting booms and bangs can have an adverse affect on folks, pets, and wildlife. The Big Bear producers of the fireworks display have twice before modified planned events to included things like laser shows instead of controlled detonations. Big Bear authorities, well aware of the popularity of Jackie and nest have previously closed the areas around it when eggs are laid and hatchlings are growing. But the 4th of July means fireworks, dagnab it, and the show will go on regardless of petitions and interwebs pressure.
The eagles being disoriented and staying away for days after is acceptable collateral issues to the folks looking to entertain the gathered masses and make plenty of money from them. But for the eagles, the timing couldn’t be worse. While Jackie and Shadow have been through this before, and being off for a few days is one thing, Gizmo and Sunny may not be advanced enough to go days without parental assistance, or to handle the disorientation of night time boom boom. Despite the sayings about being “eagle eyed” in the daytime, the bald eagles are actually quite limited at night. That’s before colorful, loud explosions go off.
The arguments for 4th of July fireworks display, in Big Bear and elsewhere, always comes down to tradition and symbolism. Fireworks are just darn cool, and even in an internet world where anything can be viewed on command, live fireworks still get the ohs and ahs. In a world that is racing towards AI and amusing itself with CGI, the sights, sounds, and smells of a good firecracker display still stirs the mortal soul. Too much so, for folks with sensory or trauma issues, or those pets who don’t grasp it, or the wildlife who are disrupted. Pile on the traditions and symbolism of celebrating America, and you have something that for many folks is unassailable from even questioning, let alone relegating to the past.
But we should at least question it. “It’s just fireworks” and/or “It’s how we’ve always done it” and/or “it’s just some birds” and/or “shut up you (fill in the blank insult) for not understanding how awesome this is” does not change that symbolism and tradition are by definition what we make them. John Muir, who more than anyone else made the California wilderness something the entire nation learned to treasure, put it this way: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
Amusing and entertaining ourselves is a poor reason to tug at not only a single thing in nature, but a singular thing in bald eagles making Big Bear Valley their home and enlightening the whole world of that special place. Arguing tourist season revenue against the comfort and well-being of two barely-flying eagles and their parents isn’t going to be a winning argument this 4th of July. But the groundswell of pushback is telling. That single thread in nature being tugged at is noticed, and has application to our wider view of things like the environment, conservation, and even the peace in our homes and peace in our minds for folks that would rather keep the rockets red glare to the lyrics of the national anthem.
Folks will decide for themselves which is more amazing: the natural wonder of bald eagles taking up residence in one of the most beautiful places not just in California or America but on Earth, or the man-made sound and fury of fireworks on the 4th of July. Plenty of folks will like both. Folks who are looking for a fight online and otherwise will pick a side.
As for me and my household, we are with the eagles. I don’t need fireworks, and 4th of July and New Years Eve usually involve headphones and finding something to distract from them if I’m in my home. Not that I won’t ever go to a fireworks display that is advertised as such, but having those sights and sounds in my home around my family is not something my less-than-optimally functional mind and pets cares for. For reasons we aren’t going to get into here. I’ll take the symbolism of free bald eagles populating the Big Bear Valley under the watchful eye of solar powered webcams broadcast on the internet for the world to see.
Ain’t that America?