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?
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?