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Should you feed birds in your backyard?
Australian Community Media
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yesterday
Feeding native birds is a contested topic in Australia. An urban ecologist provides his advice for feeding birds safely and WIRES implores people to never feed wildlife.
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Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
between a third and a half of Australians anywhere in Australia are at any one time feeding birds.
00:07
Should you feed birds in your backyard? It's a controversial topic in Australia,
00:13
and most wildlife organisations or government agencies will advise you to never feed birds.
00:20
Although it can be tempting to feed wildlife, particularly birds, it's usually best to avoid
00:26
this practice. Some foods such as bread and mince can cause health impacts for birds and nutritional
00:33
deficiencies. It also brings birds closer together and can potentially spread infectious diseases.
00:41
Urban Ecologist Professor Darrell Jones changed his mind about bird feeding
00:46
after he researched how common it is in Australia.
00:50
I realised that people were not going to stop feeding birds, but in some cases they were
01:02
inadvertently without even knowing, feeding them the wrong things. Professor Jones is clear that in
01:08
Australia birds don't need to be fed, unless there's an extreme weather event like a bushfire.
01:14
We're putting out food for us to enjoy the birds. The birds don't need it. If we stop feeding tomorrow,
01:22
they would be fine. They'll just carry on doing what they've always done.
01:27
When it comes to magpies, the most commonly fed bird in Australia, they don't eat seed. They eat worms
01:34
and grubs, invertebrates primarily. Aussies often feed minced meat to magpies, which can be harmful.
01:42
We really have to stop feeding any birds mince. It just doesn't have enough calcium. No bird
01:49
just eats meat. No predator or carnivore just eats meat. They eat all the parts of the animal's body.
01:56
And so until they come up with an artificial worm or invertebrate of some sort, the best thing to do
02:03
is provide them with pet food. So just dry dog food or cat food is okay and it won't do them any harm.
02:10
Professor Jones recommends purchasing bird feed manufactured by a reputable pet food company.
02:17
It's really crucially important if we're going to feed birds to be very clean. It's like if you were
02:24
inviting your friends over for dinner, you'd make sure the plates were clean before you actually
02:28
provided the dinner. We sweep down any of the debris that was on there from the last,
02:32
last time that we put some food out. I always wipe it down with some vinegar just to keep,
02:37
kill anything that might be there. That's because bird feeders can spread diseases like beak and feather
02:43
disease, which has high death rates and no effective treatment. It's quite prevalent in rainbow lorikeets
02:51
and cockatoos and it's highly contagious and can be spread on surfaces. That's just one of the reasons
02:59
WISE implores Australians to never feed birds. Although I know we all want to help our birds and wildlife,
03:06
it does do generally more harm than good. If we do want to help, we can look into planting some native
03:13
shrubs in our garden. Still on the fence about whether you should feed birds, both Professor Jones and WISE
03:22
agree on one thing. Leaving water out for wildlife is a great idea. When you get the same reward,
03:28
the birds will come and have a splash around and drink the food, drink the water right in front of
03:33
you and it's a wonderful thing to experience. I would suggest using a very shallow dish and cleaning
03:39
it regularly and also placing something like a stick or a rock into the water so any small animal that
03:44
may fall into the water can climb back out again.
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