
Feeding wild animals can lead to trouble - codermobile
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/07/dont-feed-wild-animals-except-birds/
======
js2
> how that’s effecting the composition

Affecting.

We have several squirrel resistant feeders for both seed and suet here in
Raleigh NC and have not had a problem (afaik) with invasive birds. We also
have hummingbird feeders, a vegetable garden, a peach tree and a blueberry
bush, as well as bee and butterfly friendly plants.

It’s impossible to keep the squirrels away. Even though they can’t eat from
the feeders directly, they constantly probe them for weaknesses, eat seed off
the ground, steal from our peach tree, etc. They are really terrible pests. We
also have trouble with rabbits eating our flowers and ground plants, but it’s
a little harder to be upset by them. We have to surround our blueberry bush in
bird netting but somehow a bird still seems to find its way in so we only get
about half our bush’s blueberries.

We get robins, blue birds, cardinals, jays, mockingbirds, woodpeckers,
grackles, finches, wrens, chickadees and others.

The hummingbirds are usually the most fun to watch. You can watch them bulk up
from when they first arrive till they are ready to migrate. They are very
aggressive with each other. Our feeder could easily feed four at a time but
that never happens because as soon as one lands another tries to chase him or
her off. If I’m sitting outside they’ll occasionally fly near to inspect me
but they are very skittish. I’ve seen them fight with wasps that also like to
land on the feeder.

The Carolina wrens will try to nest just about anywhere. One year I discovered
one trying to make a nest in my bicycle helmet which was hanging in the
garage. We have to be careful trimming bushes midsummer not to disturb any
nests.

The plants and wildlife make our yard so much more pleasant and interesting.
Our most recent addition is a solar powered fountain/bird bath to the two
baths we already had. The birds really appreciate the baths in the summer
time. Even the squirrels sometimes drink from them.

~~~
ggggtez
If I had to read a comment pointing out every misspelling on the internet, I
just wouldn't use the internet at all. This type of comment adds very little
value to other people.

~~~
js2
I made the comment more interesting but to your point, this isn’t a spelling
mistake, it’s a usage error. Affect/effect are different words which are
sometimes confused. Usually “affect” is used as a verb and “effect” as a noun
but affect has a noun form and effect has a verb form. They mean different
things. Also, this isn’t just “on the Internet”—it’s published by National
Geographic, a prestigious organization.

I’m a not a hard core prescriptivist but the writer in this case is simply
wrong. It’s a mistake that should have been caught by an editor, though I
doubt, sadly, any editor was involved.

~~~
rriepe
The verb form of "effect" just means "bring about" and it makes sense here.

Relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/326/](https://xkcd.com/326/)

~~~
js2
Substitute “brings about” into the original sentence and you’ll see it doesn’t
really make sense:

“It’s the first time really that we’ve seen this quite obvious, large-scale
impact of what we’re doing in our own backyards and how that’s bringing about
the composition of the birds that we see around us,” says Plummer.

Plummer meant that bird feeders are changing (i.e. affecting) the composition,
not causing or bringing about (i.e. effecting) the composition.

Plummer recently published a paper on the topic that uses affect and effect
many times and each use of affect is as a verb and effect as a noun:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10111-5](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10111-5)

I’m certain the reporter made a transcription error while interviewing
Plummer.

[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/326:_Effect_an_Ef...](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/326:_Effect_an_Effect)
goes into more depth about the distinction.

Finally, I just double-checked with my mom who has a bachelors in English, a
masters in TESOL, and a doctorate in rhetoric and linguistics, and who has
worked as an English professor and as an English tutor. She agrees that
“effecting” is misused in the original sentence. Feel free to cite a more
authoritative source than my mom. :-)

~~~
rriepe
How does that not make sense? Environmental factors bring about population
compositions. That is exactly how an ecologist would think about it.

~~~
js2
Please see the Nature article I linked to and note that every instance of
"composition" refers to change in the composition. Some examples:

\- "bird community composition also reacting promptly to the introduction and
removal of feeding stations"

\- "food resources provided by the British public have altered the
composition"

\- "feeding practices appear to have contributed significantly to the changing
composition"

\- "the composition of bird communities exploiting garden bird food has
changed"

\- "Changes in community composition"

The paper also contains 20+ uses of "effect" as a noun. Affected is clearly
the intended word. The reporter made a mistake.

To "effect something" is to "cause it to occur" and in this case, bird feeding
hasn't caused population composition to occur, but rather has changed the
existing population composition.

BTW, I sent a DM to the reporter. I'll report back if he replies.

~~~
js2
> I'll report back if he replies.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20395196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20395196)

------
aszantu
"Foraging in the wild" there is practically no wild left in Germany. Some
wolves came back and our politicians decided to issure hunting licenses for
them... Not many points left for not feeding except for the transmission of
deseases. That said, I've got a mealworm farm, and some bugs infiltrated it,
so I'm putting those larvae out for the bird, but only one bird comes.

~~~
jjtheblunt
Why (the hell) would politicians issue hunting licenses, though it happens,
with the same questions, here in north america? I never understood the
explicit support of non-food-related hunting.

~~~
steve_adams_86
The idea is (in the cases I've researched it) that it supports dwindling
populations of the wolves' prey. In some cases it actually makes sense, but
not for any _good_ reasons, so to speak. It's a bandaid solution. It's sort of
like a top down solution to a regrettable ecological problem.

It's like when someone writes some terrible code and you write an external
solution to one of the problems their code causes. Only in this case, instead
of us doing a full rewrite, we need to leave nature alone and rewrite itself.
Our intervening by culling predators is not sustainable because we can't
properly calculate the effects and it has damaged predator populations so
severely. We also didn't anticipate for example how diseased and disgusting
deer would get without proper, natural, regular culling by their predators.

So yeah there are 'reasons' for doing it, but none of them are holistically
wise choices for their respective ecosystems.

------
pg_bot
This quote jumped out at me.

"In a study recently published in the journal Nature Communications, Plummer
found that people are seeing a more diverse array of bird species in backyards
now than they did in the 1970s. And this change has coincided with the
evolution of the birdfeeder market."

I wonder what effect this has had on insect populations. My immediate thought
was better bird feeders and bird seed => more birds => fewer insects.

~~~
rlonn
Usually, lack of insects near humans is because humans destroy or remove their
habitat and food - mainly decaying plant matter (fallen trees especially).
Insect populations then dwindle, which means bird populations do also. If
birds start to reappear because of backyard bird feeding, I bet the insects
were already gone (or the birds wouldn't have disappeared in the first place)

------
newphonewhodis
The Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative has a nice fact sheet on back yard
bird feeders and trichomonosis[1].

[1] [http://www.cwhc-
rcsf.ca/docs/fact_sheets/Trich_Factsheet_EN....](http://www.cwhc-
rcsf.ca/docs/fact_sheets/Trich_Factsheet_EN.pdf)

------
keanzu
Except maybe birds. In a study recently published in the journal Nature
Communications, Plummer found that people are seeing a more diverse array of
bird species in backyards now than they did in the 1970s. And this change has
coincided with the evolution of the birdfeeder market.

~~~
hvs
Unfortunately, many people put out bird feeders that support the House Sparrow
which is an invasive species in the U.S. that crowds out (and actively kills)
local species.

[https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/managing-
ho...](https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/managing-house-
sparrows-and-european-starlings/)

[https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/what-do-about-
house-...](https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/what-do-about-house-
sparrows)

I am all for feeding birds as long as people research the bird feeders and
food that they are providing.

~~~
faitswulff
Any sources for sparrows crowding out or killing local species? Last I heard
they were mostly benign in the Americas.

~~~
ip26
[http://www.treeswallowprojects.com/spardam.html](http://www.treeswallowprojects.com/spardam.html)

~~~
jacobush
This made me sad.

------
phkahler
I'd like to attract birds of prey to eat all the rabbits, squirrels and other
varmints that have been proliferating lately.

------
daodedickinson
This logic is only fair if applied to homo sapiens sapiens animals, too. They
aren't any less clever at being short-term efficient at their own long-term
peril and any careful observer of California can tell you of the growing
threat they pose as carriers of diseases "spread by exposure to urine, saliva,
and feces".

------
nradov
In my Bay Area neighborhood, residents have been feeding coyotes by letting
their cats run loose outside. Then when the coyotes eat the cats, those idiots
get mad because Santa Clara County Vector Control won't do something to remove
the coyotes.

[https://www.sccgov.org/sites/vector/programs-and-
services/wi...](https://www.sccgov.org/sites/vector/programs-and-
services/wildlife/Pages/home.aspx)

~~~
Beefin
How are they “feeding coyotes by letting their cats run loose”?

~~~
pixl97
Cause cats running loose is a terrible problem itself. They are small mammals
dedicated to the art of murder. They tend to wipe out native species.

~~~
jtms
Yep - if you care about your cat and you care about your environment then keep
you cats indoors

