A Little Bit More
Time and time again, people with the very best intentions provide food for wildlife without realizing that it just isn’t good for them. Although bread, hot dogs, and popcorn may be OK for human consumption, it isn’t for wildlife. It may seem that animals living in the wild need supplemental food but this is rarely the case. Wildlife conservation rests much more with habitat preservation than it does with food; with proper habitat, they’ll have the proper foods.
Animals very quickly learn that a given area or particular person has food for them but they don’t necessarily know what foods are good and which ones are not. I guess you could think of wildlife a bit like children; although candy and soda might be a child’s choice for dinner, any conscientious parent limits this kind of food for their own well being. Furthermore, providing foods for animals can also concentrate them unnaturally, increasing the potential for the spread of disease.
The fact that bird feeders are so common across North America may imply that feeding wildlife of any kind is reasonable. But, foods provided for bird feeders have been carefully selected (scientists have worked hard to insure quality products) to be high in nutritional and caloric content for the birds that use it. A large part of bird feeding is designed more to bring the birds in close to where you can see them rather than actually providing much needed food anyway. Granted, there are times when your local bird feeder helps birds survive an especially cold or difficult winter but for the most part, those same birds would do just fine without your handout. So, the next time you see wildlife and are tempted to feed them from your picnic basket, think before you act; enjoy them without the handouts and you’ll be doing them a favor.
Activities
Science– Bird Seed
Objectives: See exactly what is in a bag of bird seed
Materials: Access to bird seed container
This is a simple enough exercise but one that may help participants understand that the wild bird seed we give wildlife for winter feeders really is a formulated assortment of seeds.
Take a look at the ingredients in a bag of bird seed from your local store. You may want to look at one you already have in the house or if you don’t have any, take a look at bird seed at your grocery store. Doing so, you’ll see that there are specific kinds of bird seed in given proportions in these bags. Scientists have studied the requirements of birds and made every effort to provide natural, nutritional food for birds in winter that you can use in your feeder. If you want to look even a bit more closely, you can bring in some seed and examine it carefully in your hand.
Once you know the specific kinds of seeds in a given bag of bird seed mix, you may want to perform an interesting experiment. If you can purchase each individual ingredient that you’ve found in your bird seed mix, you can offer each kind to the birds to see what they prefer. Simply place each kind of seed in its own separate container and observe which container is most often used by your birds. Although you may find a particular preference for a given seed today, 6 months from now that preference may change as birds’ needs change through the season.
Key Concepts
Food Webs /Food Pyramids, Environmental Issues
Questions
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