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Bird feeders - are they enviromentaly correct? (1 Viewer)

Aracari

Birding in Brazil
This may sound stupid or just controversial... but I've always wondered about it.

Everybody knows that birds are among the top seed dispersing agents in forests around the world. By regularly feeding birds we may be interfering with this important natural process.

It may not matter in huge wilderness areas, like in the Amazon, but I do think it has some effects on fragmented forests, like some parts of the Atlantic Rainforest. In some areas and national parks there are lodges, and all of them have their bird feeders, and sometimes it seems that entire bird populations become "addicted" to the feeders (some frugivorous species of course, like toucans), returning to it several times a day, every day, throughout the year.

I would become addcited too if I had fresh sweet banana and papaya served to me everyday at the same place... what, go look for a few hard to eat, untasty palm fruits in the forest? Nah!

Is there some study about it? Or am I just being a little too paranoid?
 
Kind of confused by your question (sorry ;) ). Are you concerned about the seed dispersal in fragmented forests, or about bird dependency?
 
Katy Penland said:
Kind of confused by your question (sorry ;) ). Are you concerned about the seed dispersal in fragmented forests, or about bird dependency?

Both actually... the bird dependency will disrupt to some extent the natural seed dispersal. The big question is: to what extense?
 
I seem to recall reading somewhere (probably in a thread here on BF ;) ) that birds glean less than 25% of their total diet from feeders. Good question on whether that 25% impacts natural seed dispersal.

Are you also concerned with feeder seed that sprouts in areas where it's not native? I know some seeds (like niger) are treated so they won't sprout, but certainly sunflower and safflower seeds sprout all over my yard. ;)

Interesting thread. Look forward to seeing others' input.
 
Katy Penland said:
Are you also concerned with feeder seed that sprouts in areas where it's not native?

Yeah well that would be a second concern... but yes, it's also something I have though.

Lets see what others have to say. |:p|
 
I would tend to think, but have no references to support it, that if there is a niche, then something will fill it. If, in a worse case senerio, all the birds in a particular forest were drawn out of a forest to feed full time at feeders, then that leaves a lot of available food in the forest. That resource will not be left unused. Competition would become high at the feeder sites, and many birds would shift back to the less contested and therefore easier food in the forest. It's like an equilibrium equation in chemistry. The reaction only goes so far before the products become the reactants and vice versa.

This is totally armchair theororizing of course and could easily be shot full of holes.

Scott
 
cavan wood said:
I would tend to think, but have no references to support it, that if there is a niche, then something will fill it. If, in a worse case senerio, all the birds in a particular forest were drawn out of a forest to feed full time at feeders, then that leaves a lot of available food in the forest. That resource will not be left unused. Competition would become high at the feeder sites, and many birds would shift back to the less contested and therefore easier food in the forest. It's like an equilibrium equation in chemistry. The reaction only goes so far before the products become the reactants and vice versa.

This is totally armchair theororizing of course and could easily be shot full of holes.

Scott
A parallel question has arisen on the UK Nest Record Scheme recorders discussion forum. "Have garden bird feeders, by fuelling a rise in aggressive tits (blue and great) caused damage to less aggressive tree hole nesting species such as spotted flycatcher and willow tit ?"

Several recorders noted nests of the latter taken over by the former. In several cases the adults were found dead under the tit nests.

Small (biased ?) sample size, but a question worth considering.

Mike.
 
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