Feeding wild animals human food is actually killing them

Apparently not everyone has gotten the memo—do NOT feed wildlife.

No animal living in the wild should ever be eating human food. While you are at it, stop putting out bird seed. Birds have plenty of “natural” food to feast on.

Several geese in the California Park area of Chico have deformed wings. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

If you want to attract birds and butterflies and other “good” animals, then plant the trees and flowers they are attracted to. Or go visit them where they live instead of luring them to your place.

Feeding wildlife creates a reliance on food instead of them finding it themselves, and can cause disease as well as malnutrition.

I live in an area with a ton of wild geese. Mostly they are found by the man-made lakes in the neighborhood where I regularly walk.

On occasion I have noticed some of the birds literally have ruffled feathers. I didn’t give it much thought. Maybe it was a grooming issue. Maybe it was a birth defect.

Then a friend told me she learned the deformations are the result of them eating bread. Wow, just wow.

So human’s weird obsession with feeding animals is now deforming them. Come on people, we can do better.

On the website of Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, veterinarian Jennifer Graham says, “This is a very preventable condition. A diet of human-fed bread makes the flight feathers grow too quickly for their soft bones to support and the feathers become twisted away from the body at a 90-degree angle.”

For geese, the deformation is called angel wing syndrome. The joint of the wing is twisted, with the feathers pointing in the opposite direction as would be normal.

It can be reversed in young birds if they are taken to a care facility where the wings would be taped in place for a short time. Adults, well, they will have to learn to live with the damage. But they aren’t likely to live long because the syndrome prevents them from flying, which prevents them from migrating.

Feeding animals isn’t saving them; it’s killing them.