Interesting research…. …but don’t feed the garden birds will harm my mother brain healt, she is convinced that without her food those “poor little birds” will death! :)
Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
11–20 of 94 posts
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#12I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…
Yeah, these downvotes are silly. My guess would be not rage but simple disagreement, neither of which justify downvotes.
Raw garlic is very intense, I've never heard of eating that except minced in salsa.
I'd also say we're not evolved for purely vegetable eating, we've had access to cooked meat from fire for probably 1-2 million years. This is one reason our brains expanded, because we gained access to richer foods like cooked meat with fat, which in turn supported more brain cognition.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#13If these are migratory birds, then it is possible you are going to kill them by keeping them feeding while they should be migrating. We have this problem here in Poland Then you find birds dead because they are not adapted to surviving the winter.
Hum, I don't think so. Even with a few birds dying, as long as they are replenished routinely bird feeders are definitely good for winter survivorship in birds.
Birds that evolved in Central Europe don't die by winter if they can find a constant supply of food. Can choose to do a shorter migration and overwinter in northern areas and this is good for the survival of young birds. Urban areas are warmer also. Migrating south is hazardous and exhausting and there are some places in the Mediterranean or Africa that are notoriously dangerous for birds when they are hunted massively.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
The type and size of seed. Larger birds focus on larger (higher energy) seed sold at the stores. The plants I select to go to seed have small seeds and feed small birds. Just one of many observations I've had the pleasure of collecting anecdotal evidence on.
I don’t think the size of the bird is particularly relevant as birds of the same size compete for the same nesting sites. The article gives the example of blue tits dominating willow and marsh tits by hoarding the bird feeder and kicking them out of their nesting sites. Both the willow and marsh tit are slightly bigger than the blue tit. It seems to me that your garden would also have this issue.
A bird feeder is a very small location with an extremely high concentration of seeds. A garden, while small, is much larger than a feeder. I think less dominant birds would stand a much better chance of reaching the seeds in a spread out garden than they would at a feeder. Additionally, the plants in the garden offer cover for small birds to hide behind while they’re eating seeds on the ground. This should also help the less dominant birds survive.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#15I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…
> Our ideal food is plant-based
This is a myth. We eat lots of cereals of course, but the longest living people are definitely ommnivorous and eat a lot of seafood also. We can survive on bread and water, but this is not ideal.
Common people identify plant eaters with primitive, but is a mistake. Specialized plant eaters developped a lot of modern features. We don't have ever-growing teeth. We don't have a gut split in several specialized guts for housing fermenting bacteria. We don't have a sophisticated olfact sense to smell the plants and detect poisonous ones.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#16I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…
Yeah, these downvotes are silly. My guess would be not rage but simple disagreement, neither of which justify downvotes. Raw garlic is very intense, I've never heard of eating that except minced in salsa. I'd also say we're not evolved for purely vegetable eating, we've had access to cooked meat from fire for probably 1-2 million years. This is one reason our brains expanded, because we gained access to richer foods…
I use to use a lot of raw garlic mixing with mayo or potatoes or whatever.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#17I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…
> that's what we're designed for chewing and digesting since million years
You’re being downvoted because this is just wrong. Humans aren’t “designed”, we evolved and we evolved as omnivores NOT for a plant based diet.
I’m not saying we can’t switch to a plant based diet now, it is probably better for us and the planet; but this “humans are naturally vegan” is just silly.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#18I often see people giving bread or other completely inappropriate food to birds in parcs or horses, chickens in small farms or ducks, swans, gallinules, fishes in estuaries I think we can also raise the problem in people diet as well, it's quite related. Our ideal food is plant-based, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds, leaves, bulbs (eating raw garlic is incredible), that's what we're designed for chewing and digesti…
I think you're being downvoted because you're giving non-mainstream health advice and acting as if it's sensible and obvious.
Most people are used to hearing strange health advice from others and have developed strong "bullshit detector" instincts around this topic.
"Eat raw garlic" would be a textbook example of this form of health advice, as it has an extremely unpleasant taste in any significant quantity and also makes you smell bad to others.
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#19An alternative narrative: if feeders favor dominant/ bully birds, it might help the less dominant ones by freeing up just about every other spot in the area. If you knew the high school bullies were hanging out in the gym 90% of the time, the gym is actually helping you avoid the bullies (assuming you don’t have to go to the gym).
Re: Does feeding garden birds do more harm than good?
#20The paper mentioned in the article, Killing with kindness: Does widespread generalised provisioning of wildlife help or hinder biodiversity conservation efforts?, can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...
> can be found here
For the low price of only $35.95!
Not even sure it contains much. The abstract says (replacing some needlessly obscure words because not everyone's native language is english):
> Direct effects upon [fed animals] have garnered most research interest, and are generally positive in leading to increased survival, productivity and hence population growth. However, we argue that the wider implications for [their non-fed] competitors, prey and predators are underappreciated and have the potential to generate pervasive negative impacts for biodiversity.
"We argue"? Not like, "we show" or "our data shows"? A bit further into it:
> Using a case study of UK garden bird food and nestbox provisioning, we hypothesise how well-intentioned [feeding] could be contributing to widespread ecological community change and homogenisation.
I know the word hypothesise as basically meaning speculate or a theory yet to be investigated (and a dictionary agrees). I guess they do have some results from that case study, but with this tentative wording I'm not sure it's worth forking over thirty bucks to a publisher for no conclusions.