Why Teaching Your Children to Feed Wildlife is a Bad Idea

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you are probably cognizant of the fact that it's not really a good idea to be feeding wild animals. Perhaps you grew up feeding ducks and other waterfowl bread with your parents or grandparents and have now continued this with your own children. This is usually how the cycle works and now is as good a time as any to break this cycle and to educate yourself as well as your children about why feeding wild animals is not only a bad idea, but it's actually harmful for the animals and in certain cases, the environment.

Most people who feed wildlife have good intentions, but few understand that what they are doing is not only harmful, but can be dangerous for themselves as well as the wild animals they come into contact with. I grew up loving all animals and I certainly fed wildlife with my parents as a child too. It wasn't until I volunteered at a wildlife rehabilitation center that I truly learned how destructive this practice really is.

First and foremost, you can put your mind at ease if you believe that ducks, geese, gulls, and other birds don't have enough to eat. Not only do they have plenty of natural food sources, those sources are what is truly best for them to be consuming so that they remain healthy and are able to thrive, reproduce successfully, and care for their offspring. The great majority of the times that I witness people feeding wildlife with or without children present, they are feeding them things like bread, chips, fries, pretzels, crackers, and other similar items. Generally speaking, these types of foods are highly processed, low in nutrients, and high in calories. Birds and other wild animals don't encounter bread and other similar items in ponds and lakes because they are not a natural food source. Imagine if someone approached you each time you were out with your child and wanted to feed them cotton candy, pixi sticks, funnel cakes or something similar? Doesn't sound like a very good idea, does it? Your children would be consuming a ton of empty calories with a long list of ingredients that you wouldn't want in their bodies. This is sort of what it's like when you approach a mother duck with her ducklings and offer that bread.

From the first time a wild animal receives a human handout, their natural instincts that tell them to avoid humans begin to erode. Fear of humans is one of the most protective instincts that a wild animal has, and when they lose it, they sometimes wind up losing their lives. All people do not appreciate wildlife equally, and some people actually enjoy harming wild animals. If a wild animal's fear of humans is intact, they are much more likely to be able to avoid those individuals that actually want to harm them. If they associate humans with food, they may unwittingly approach an individual that wants to do them harm and by then the damage has been done.

Birds and other animals that have a steady diet of these unhealthy handouts tend to be overweight and undernourished. It's just the same as the cotton candy principle. If you fed your child nothing but sweets, you would ultimately wind up with an overweight child that is very unhealthy. Wild animals that associate humans with food can often become aggressive towards humans when seeking a handout. Once a wild animal has become aggressive towards humans, it is often on the losing end of a battle that it never needed to be a part of. When an overzealous, hungry, wild animal bites a human, it oftentimes is captured and euthanized.

The animals that you are feeding directly also aren't the only animals that you may be impacting. Bald Eagles eat ducks. When a Bald Eagle captures and eats a healthy duck, it receives the life-sustaining nutrients that it needs to be a strong and healthy animal and to raise healthy young to keep populations healthy. When an Eagle kills a duck that has been plumped out on Wonderbread, what it gets is a fat lump of feathers. There is not as much lean protein offered by a fat and unhealthy duck, so you begin to impact the food chain of an array of species that are interdependent upon one another's healthy, natural eating habits and lifestyles. Not only that - there is another ugly event that occurs that you probably haven't witnessed. Sometimes ducks, geese, gulls, and other birds get bread caught in their esophagus, where it may physically split the birds esophagus, causing the bird to die. This is not what you intended when you offered that handout and had that encounter with a beautiful, wild animal, but it sometimes is the end result.

You would be doing the world and wildlife a great service by breaking this cycle and teaching your children about why it's not a good idea to feed wild animals so that they may teach their children the same thing and establish a new, healthy cycle to pass on to future generations.

If you want to teach your children about wild animals and to see them in their natural environment exhibiting their natural behaviors, you can contact your local Audubon Society or Department of Fish and Wildlife for ideas. Getting out into nature with your children and viewing wildlife is a wonderful thing - just make sure you leave the bread at home.

Source: http://www.paws.org/feeding-wildlife.html