Feeding Wildlife

You will have noticed “Please do not feed the wildlife” signs appearing around the garden. We know some people love to feed birds and animals that they come across and we hope what follows, which is based on research about the welfare of birds and other animals, will help you to understand our request.

Our friends at BirdLife Australia have put together a great article on this and while it does include what you might be able to safely feed, please don’t at our garden as we have too many visitors and it not only causes health issues for the animals, but also pollution in our water. The algae it creates can kill fish create disease and also make the water smell.

Here are some great tips for home use.

A guide to feeding wild birds in Australia

Alternative solutions that help you to enjoy wildlife in your garden:

Plant a wildlife friendly garden. WIRES have 12 tips for this.

Add some water! Again a great article from Birdlife Australia on this. Providing water for birds.

Helping animals with this summer heat. Australian Geographic has some great information here.

Still not sure? There are a number of reasons for harm, but perhaps the simplest way to explain it is via the three Ds.

Dependency. Animals that become used to being fed, especially young birds, lose their natural skills to find their own food. When the food isn’t available, they can end up starving.

Disease spread. There are a number of diseases in wildlife that can easily spread when birds gather in large numbers to be fed. Here are some recent articles about issues to be aware of.

Article on Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome.

Sick birds in SE Queensland (Warning some distressing images)

Beak and feather disease. (Again a warning about some distressing images)

Though feeding may not be the cause of some of these diseases, feeding birds can help spread the problem by having sick birds mingling with healthy birds. Think of social distancing for humans with covid.

Any feeding bowl must be kept spotlessly clean. If one sick bird leaves infected saliva or faeces then others are in jeopardy. Some prefer to feed on the ground, thinking that it saves them cleaning a bowl or that it is more natural, but the same issues can occur and it takes heavy rain to wash the problem away.

Dietary deficiency. Although there are some foods animals appear to love, they simply do not meet the dietary needs of the animal. Think of a human fed only on bread or McDonalds. If an animal is filled with something like bread, it doesn’t forage for its normal, nutritious food, creating deficiencies.

We often don’t see the results of our feeding, but they can be fatal over the long-term. Feeding meat to magpies and kookaburras causes their bones to leach calcium in order to digest the meat. This causes serious bone deficiency problems and shattered wings. These birds are whole food eaters. Some seeds can cause damage to the tongues of birds that rely on pollen and nectar as part of their diet, cracking the seeds can break fine bristles needed to gather the pollen.

Most people love our native wildlife so let’s do our best to help rather than harm.