If you haven’t taken down your decorations from Halloween, a wildlife expert from Virginia Tech says you might want to do that. As Sandy Hausman reports, fake spider webs could be hazardous to real spiders, birds and bees.
Sticky web-like material sprayed from a can is an easy Halloween decoration, but Jim Parkhurst, an associate professor of wildlife at Virginia Tech, says he can see situations where critters – especially the nocturnal kind – could get tangled up in what he calls an unforgiving synthetic material.
Crozet resident Jenn Henderson made that discovery when taking down this year’s decorations.
“As I was wrapping up the fake spider webs, I saw that there were bees in there," she recalls. "Then I saw that one of them was still alive, so I grabbed my husband and we cut it out of there with scissors. We managed to get almost all of the fluff, so we saved a bee today!”
She then checked online and discovered a fake web in California had snagged a small owl. There, too, wildlife lovers were able to save the bird, but Henderson thought it best to warn her neighbors, and an online post brought a rush of thanks from others who shared her concern.
So what does she plan for next Halloween?
"We’ll stick with pumpkins," she says with a smile.
And Professor Parkhurst adds another thought – the fake webbing could pose a fire hazard during an especially dry fall.