Keepers at a Dutch zoo have found an unorthodox solution to calm down skittish giraffes spooked by the sound of thousands of end-of-year fireworks going off: playing them pop music.

“We have tried a few things to calm the giraffes down over the years,” Amersfoort Animal Park spokeswoman Josien van Eijk told AFP.

“We found that pop music works best to calm the animals down and the bangs become more background noise,” she said of the five giraffes at the park in Amersfoort in the central Netherlands.