We used to have a neighbor who fed the local wild life. She would leave her screen door open while she was at work so the squirrels could come inside and eat from her cat's food bowl. Often, before she left for work, she would take a bowl of potato chips and pretzels and throw them out for the crows who, after a few days of this, would congregate and fly around her squawking and generally making a nuisance.
She apparently believed that she was doing these animals a favor.
Another neighbor used to take cat food across the street to feed wild cats. At one time, a neighbor of my mother's was feeding an entire herd of wild cats.
At the park where I used to run, people would go with peanuts just to feed the squirrels. In no time, these squirrels became as obese as their human feeders.
Now I'm sure that these human feeders have good intentions, or at least they think they do. Actually, their behavior is pretty selfish; it makes them feel good to feed these poor little animals who, without their human enablers, would have to fend for themselves. It is probably not coincidental that the two neighbors I mentioned who fed the squirrels, crows, and cats, lived alone with few friends. Sadly, by feeding the animals, they ensured that someone one (or something) depended on them.
But these human feeders are not doing the animals any favors. As the Humane Society of the United States (as well as many other organizations) point out, "the long-term consequences of [feeding wild life] are often disastrous." But the Humane Society doesn't oppose all feeding of animals. For example, they don't oppose placing bird feeders in your back yard, but they do offer some guidelines for feeding wild life.
For example, they state:
The HSUS opposes the feeding of wildlife when the reasonable assumption can be made that animals may come to harm. While feeding birds and squirrels in your backyard is generally not an activity that fits into this category, some conditions may warrant curtailing the provision of such food sources. For example, during the warmer months, when natural food sources are more readily available, it's usually best to reduce the amount of feed you put out each day or suspend feeding altogether.But the best advice: don't feed the wild life.
If you do provide feed for backyard wildlife—at any time of the year—remember that it's also important to maintain safe, clean feeding stations in order to prevent the spread of disease.
I am an admitted feeder of wild life and I don’t do it so as to foster a dependent relationship between myself and nature’s wild creatures. It’s for much less nefarious reasons. We have four potted citrus trees on our patio and early on they attracted several hummingbirds. Unfortunately, when the trees were done flowering, I saw less of the hummingbirds, so I set out three humming bird feeders. I have been maintaining these feeders for at least four years now. I like to watch the hummingbirds. With a background in basic behavioral research on animal behavior, I find them quite interesting. Humming birds are territorial and as we have at least two and at times as many as four different hummingbirds in the neighborhood there are often lots in interesting interactions to observe. These observations are not formal, nothing like Niko Tinbergen and his digger wasps, but patterns of behavior do become apparent. I take great pleasure sitting on the patio in the evening with a glass of wine in my hand watching the hummingbirds load up on sugar solution before they retire for the evening.
ReplyDeleteThese same hummingbirds have served as experimental subjects for my grade school aged daughters’ science projects. Over the years they have studied the effect of sugar solution taste on solution consumption, the impact of the percent of sugar in the solution on consumption as well as location and color preferences. Not JEAB level experimentation, but I think that they are learning a bit of scientific methods during the process.
Another reason I feed the hummingbirds (and yes, I admit to also maintaining a seed feeder for the other birds) is the same reason that I frequently take my children to the zoo and have a bat box and a barred owl box mounted on trees on the hillside behind our house. I want my children to be respectful and knowledgeable about a dwindling wildlife population. I believe that in the long run this will make them better citizens. I plan to continue to support the local wildlife and am currently considering getting a couple of honey bee hives.