A Pacific Black Duck and duckling feeding in the wild

I’m not a big fan of feeding wild animals, including birds, for a whole bunch of reasons.

Aggression

I’ll start with a nice picture (at right). This duck and its offspring can be seen here feeding on wild seed. Cute eh? It sure looks peaceful to me.

Birds feeding in the wild are usually peaceful. This kind of activity, where the animals search for food in wild, rewards intelligence — the smartest ducks find the most food.

A Pacific Black duck with a Silver Gull in hot pursuit

Now compare it with this next picture (at right). Someone has thrown some bread (no, it wasn’t me). The duck got to it first and now it’ going to have to break a few speed records to get it down its throat before that Silver Gull rips it out of its beak. It’s a good thing that cute duckling isn’ in the middle of all this. Those Silver Gulls don’t play nice.

This kind of feeding rewards the fastest and most aggressive individuals and is stressful for all the birds involved.

So while finding food in the wild rewards intelligence in birds, feeding them scraps of bread rewards aggression, because the most aggressive birds are the ones that snatch the food. It can aslo cause animals to turn on each other to chase the less dominant ones away. And it diminishes their natural tendency to be wary of people.

Why do we want animals to be wary of people?

I remember trying to eat some fish and chips at Watsons Bay on Sydney Harbour one day. The seagulls were clearly so used to being fed by tourists that they swarmed over my table and I had to constantly push them away. It was actually difficult to eat my food. The birds were flying in and trying to grab it from my fingers and mouth and I got a pretty good idea of how that duck felt in the picture above. So while it might be unpleasant having to fend off fifty seagulls from my meal, imagine if they were creatures capable of a dangerous bite! For example, I’ve read about dingos becoming bold and even aggressive to children after years of being fed by tourists.

So you can see how sometimes it’s a good thing that people and other animals go about their ways independent of each other. As a nature freak I love seeing animals up close, but not that close.

A second Silver Gull has joined in the chase

Well-balanced diet

Bread is good food for humans. But could you imagine what it would be like if you ate nothing but bread? If you were so full of bread all the time that you never felt like eating the other things you need in your diet?

Feeding bread to wild birds fills them up so much they no longer bother seeking out the things they need for a balanced diet. That’s making some birds sick.

A similar situation involves feeding sugary water to lorikeets. That might make you popular with the lorikeets but it’s not healthy for them. It’s like giving your kids nothing but lollies to eat. The lorikeets would be missing out on the balanced diet they’d get when feeding in the wild. This kind of unbalanced diet can also cause deformities in the chicks of some wild birds.

In the wild, birds eat all sorts of stuff, including seeds, insects and nectar, and even pollen. It makes up a complex diet which bread on its own just can’t match. Feeding them bread is like filling them up with junk food.

More about bread

My theory is that this planet was once visited by aliens, but when they climbed out of their spaceships to spread peace and advanced technology to humans, they were frightened off the planet by hordes of tourists trying to feed them bread.

Well okay, so I don’t really believe that theory. But I do wonder sometimes about why people think so many animals benefit from bread.

It’s true that many animals will eagerly take bread. But some animals like kangaroos and wallabies can be made sick by eating bread. In fact, in some cases, wallabies and kangaroos can die from eating bread, even though they seem to like it!

What about if I give birds some seed?

I’m sorry to say that’s not much better. Apart from the fact that it encourages aggression, many seed-eating birds will often pick out just the type of seeds they like and leave the ones they don’t. They can leave an awful mess which can attract rats and mice. When I say this, I’m not talking about leaving a small amount of seed outside for the birds occasionally. I would think that can’t be too bad. What I’m talking about here is the practise of regularly filling them up with seed.

Dependence

Let’s imagine that you did a whole lot of research and somehow manage to perfectly duplicate the animals’ natural diet. Is that okay?

Well, it’s certainly better, but that has its problems too. Wild animals can become dependent on regular feedings from people and lose their ability to feed themselves in the wild. Birds used to being fed can starve while the humans go away on holidays. It’s better to allow wildlife to learn how to look after themselves.

So what can you do if you want to help wild animals?

One of the best things you can do is plant a wildlife-friendly garden. Indigenous flowering bushes attract nectar-eating birds and if you include some dense shrubs too then that will provide cover for the smaller species. Plants that attract insects will also attract the wildlife that eats those insects. So you’ll get to see plenty of wild birds feeding in your garden. Even better, when you go on holidays the plants will continue to provide a resource for the wildlife during your absence.

So what’s with this Nature Stuff then?

Copyright © Mark David. All rights reserved