chinese lanterns over scalloway

[MuckleJoannie]

From the BBC website a few days ago.

 

Chinese lanterns pose danger to livestock, NFU says

 

Pat Stanley, who breeds pedigree cattle near Coalville, Leicestershire, told BBC Radio 4's Farming Today she had found lanterns in her fields.

 

She said: "They may be very pretty, but they're incredibly dangerous and I would like to see them banned.

 

"They're made of a hoop of bamboo, which in itself is a very sharp piece of wood when it's broken, and then there's a crosspiece of wire.

 

"If we silage-make in any of these fields, this is all going to be chopped to pieces if we don't see it and find it. That's going to go into my silage clamp and next year I'm going to have dead cows."

 

She added: "If you went fly-tipping rubbish in the countryside and somebody caught you doing it, you could be prosecuted. People can launch this rubbish into the air, it can cause tremendous damage and nobody knows where it's come from."

 

Hugh Rowlands, who farms near Chester, told Farming Today: "I found a pedigree Red Poll cow on her side in the field. She was struggling for breath and her neck had swollen up considerably and she actually died almost exactly 48 hours after we found her.

 

"I found the remains of a Chinese lantern within a few yards of where the cow had been lying... and it had been well-chewed.

 

"Consulting the vet, his opinion was she had actually eaten part of the lantern and the fine wire inside it had punctured her oesophagus. So she'd in effect spent a long, painful 48 hours suffocating on her own feed."

 

[Skunnered]

They are also a hazard to navigation, and could possibly cause false mayday calls, if they haven't already.

[crofter]

Lantern lovers might want to stock up before they are banned!!!

 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100204/tod-call-to-ban-chinese-lanterns-to-prot-870a197.html

[Mattie]

They do look pretty though.

[crofter]

I wondered about fixing them onto a fishing rod - you could reel in to the detritus when they are finished. Even on a flat calm night they disappear out of sight pretty quickly, if they were "tethered" on a fishing line 100m up you could enjoy them for a bit longer. Although there would still be the possibility of being mistaken for a distress flare and power lines might be an issue in the dark!

[Skunnered]

^^A sort of "night-kite"?