Let’s Talk About: Feeding Wildlife

I think we all have an innate connection with wildlife. Whether you’re a city slicker who visits the zoo, an avid sportsman who hunts and fishes to feed your family, or you’re like me and you’re somewhere in between, we all have a desire to see our wild counterparts. 

Many people feed wildlife in some capacity as a way to engage with nature. But is feeding wildlife an ethical thing to do? In this blog post I’m going to explore the various components of this question in regards to the individual or household. Government agencies at both the state and federal level may engage in feeding wildlife for certain population management objectives, but that will not be discussed in this article.

Please note: I am not an ethics expert so this article is more of a deep dive thought experiment than a lecture on ethics.

Motive

The first thing we need to ask is why. There are many reasons as to why someone would feed wildlife so let’s go through the most common ones.

• Wildlife Watching: Seemingly innocent enough, maybe you just want to catch a glimpse, whether it’s birds at the feeder, a white tailed deer, or chubby little raccoon.
• Supplementing Natural Food Stores: Sometimes people feed wildlife in times of drought or other extreme weather, when food is scarce and competition is higher.
• Baiting: There are two primary reasons why someone would bait wildlife and that’s either for hunting or photography.
• Incidental and/or Secondary: This can range from throwing that apple core into the woods while driving or leaving entrails behind after a hunt. This provides food for animals, particularly scavengers, like vultures and coyotes.

Normalization

Now we know why someone might choose to feed wildlife, we have to examine the normalization of it.

Wildlife Watching and Supplemental Feeding

Humans have a way or anthropomorphizing the world around them, essentially assuming that other living things have human emotions and behaviors. Have you ever put bird food out because the small fluffed up chickadee in January looked cold. Perhaps you’ve held out your hand until the chipmunk finally mustered up the courage to come grab the peanut from your fingertips. We might think these animals are sad, lonely, or hungry and need our help but that’s projecting human emotions onto them.

Maybe you just enjoy seeing wildlife and feeding them is the easiest way to catch a glimpse. This is fairly common, in fact, according to this survey performed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Census Bureau, in the United States alone, approximately 59.1 million people fed wild birds or other wildlife to watch them from their homes¹.

Baiting

Each state is responsible for creating the hunting laws for species within their borders, and they vary significantly. For example, in Maine you cannot bait/feed deer from June 1 to December 15, which essentially is leading up to and during hunting season, but you can the rest of the year. For bear, you can bait them during hunting season but only on public lands and with a baiting permit. Baiting is a hunting practice, but in many places it’s being phased out.

Baiting for photography isn’t really regulated to the same extent, except certain places like national parks where it’s prohibited. Wildlife photography has a dark side, going so far as using captive animals for canned photography sessions. While I can’t speak to this issue, click here for a great article to learn more.

Incidental or Secondary

I’ve heard the excuse so many times from people tossing food remnants into the woods, “it’s biodegradable”, as some kind of justification for littering. Well chances are, a wild animal probably ate that apple core before it rotted away. In a study conducted in 2009 by Keep America Beautiful, researchers found 20% of observed littering events to consist of food remnants, and 4.2% of overall litter composition was organic matter². I get the temptation, it’s one apple core and I don’t want to hang onto it all day. But as with most convenience oriented choices, they often come at an expense to the environment.

Implications

With the normalization of feeding wildlife, intentional or not, we might not think much about the potential consequences.

Increased Disease Transmission

Feeding wildlife has been shown to increase disease transmission^3,4. There’s may reasons why this happens. Firstly, the added food source draws in more animals to a concentrated area than normal. Secondly, the sharing of a food source means the saliva of infected animals is coming in contact with healthy individuals, which is a great concern amongst cervids (members of the deer family) and chronic wasting disease (CWD) which has the ability to spread to domestic livestock. Bird feeders can become pathways for some pathogens and not others, and bird species vary in their susceptibility to disease⁵.

Dependency

Does feeding wildlife result in a dependency on anthropogenic food sources? Not entirely. There is little evidence to suggest that feeding wildlife results in dependency, however, that is not to say that individuals exposed to supplementary sources don’t take advantage of them. One study of magpies in Australia found that fed and non-fed magpies foraged for food and did not develop a dependency on supplementary sources. However, natural foods only accounted for 76% of overall diet for fed magpies compared to 92% for non-fed birds⁶.

Malnourishment

Who grew up feeding bread to the ducks at the local pond or park? Well as I hope many of us know by now, it’s horrible for them. It contains little to no nutrients they require, and fills them up leaving little desire to eat the foods they actually need to survive. On a somewhat related note, it’s unfortunately common that people who try to rescue injured or orphaned wildlife feed them water, cows milk, or some kind of wildlife formula they found online. This also results in severe malnourishment which can worsen their already deteriorated health. So note, don’t feed bread to ducks and if you find an orphaned or injured animal, contact your local wildlife rehabber and let them do the feeding.

Other Concerns

Other concerns involve the human/wildlife interface such as drawing in birds towards airports which is a safety hazard, potential increases in human/wildlife conflict as animals learn to associate people with food and lose their fear, increase vehicle collisions as animals feed on food litter at the site of the road, etc.

In Conclusion

So, is it ethical to feed wildlife? Well as most answers in ethics go, there really isn’t one. I’ve heard that humans shouldn’t interfere with wildlife, however, habitat destruction and fragmentation, introduction of invasive species, and eradicating apex predators are all ways humans interfere. When it comes to actual population management, our state and federal wildlife agencies are the ones responsible as they have the technical understanding required for such a task. However, if you’re compelled to feed wildlife, let’s look at some ways to do so safely.

Avoid

The best way to avoid feeding wildlife is to provide habitat that supports the resources they need to survive. In suburban areas this can look like native and/or pollinator gardens or shrubbery instead of fencing to allow for movement of animals between habitat. On larger plots of land this can include implementation of best management practices for wildlife like avoiding cutting or disturbance during breeding season or going so far as putting land into conservation easements. To avoid incidental feeding of wildlife, practice leave no trace.

Minimize

Minimize your impact and risk to wildlife. If you have bird feeders, clean them regularly and keep them either within three feet or windows or 30+ feet away to reduce window strikes. If you’re feeding larger animals like deer, make sure you are providing adequate nutrition, water, and shelter. Report any sickly looking animals to your state fish and game agency.

Mitigate

If you’re feeding wildlife it’s probably because you care, but again, feeding wildlife can have both positive and negative impacts. Fish and game agencies along with non profits work to ensure the health of wildlife populations and their habitat. Donating to non profits like local land trusts, or local chapters of The Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, or similar groups can help provide funds necessary to protect habitat space, connectivity, and quality. State agencies offer various programs for citizens to participate in or donate to, combined with hunting and fishing licensing fees, funds their research to ensure the health of local wildlife populations.

References

1. USFWS (2016) National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/fhwar/publications/2016/fhw16-nat.pdf
2. Keep American Beautiful (2009) National Litter Research Findings and Recommendations. https://kab.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/LitterinAmerica_ExecutiveSummary_Final_0.pdf
3. Anja Sorensen, Floris M. van Beest, Ryan K. Brook (2014) Impacts of wildlife baiting and supplemental feeding on infectious disease transmission risk: A synthesis of knowledge. Preventive Veterinary Medicine, Volume 113, Issue 4. Pages 356-363, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2013.11.010.
4. Guillermo Blanco, Jesús Cardells, María M. Garijo-Toledo. (2017). Supplementary feeding and endoparasites in threatened avian scavengers: Coprologic evidence from red kites in their wintering stronghold. Environmental Research, Volume 155, Pages 22-30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2017.01.034.
5. Galbraith, J.A., Stanley, M.C., Jones, D.N. and Beggs, J.R. (2017), Experimental feeding regime influences urban bird disease dynamics. J Avian Biol, 48: 700-713. https://doi.org/10.1111/jav.01076
6. O’LEARY, R. and JONES, D.N. (2006), The use of supplementary foods by Australian magpies Gymnorhina tibicen: Implications for wildlife feeding in suburban environments. Austral Ecology, 31: 208-216. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2006.01583.x