Bird feeding is a sacred national pastime. But it doesn’t always help birds. Explore the hidden costs, learn how to strike a balance, and consider replacing feeders with habitat.
I’m a bird lover with a bit of an aversion to bird feeding. That sentiment tends to ruffle feathers, especially in Western countries where more than half of all households contribute to a multibillion-dollar bird feeding industry. But the potential harm caused by indiscriminate feeding compels me to speak out anyway.
Globally, supplemental feeding is the most common way to interact with wild animals. It also leads to significant conflict. Though bird feeding is seen as a benign method of connecting with nature, it often exacerbates an already pervasive cultural bias that favors birds over practically any other animal who visits the buffet. I’ve met people who claim to love wildlife but shoot squirrels, trap raccoons, and use rodenticides to kill mice and rats who don’t know that the seed-and-nut handouts aren’t meant for them.
Just as concerning are the ripple effects spiraling beyond our backyards and into broader ecosystems, sometimes negatively impacting the birds themselves. Feeders draw unnatural concentrations of multiple species, encouraging the spread of pathogens. They act as bait, alerting songbird predators to unusually high densities of prey. They’ve changed migration patterns for blackcap warblers in Europe and have likely helped expand winter ranges for hummingbirds, cardinals, and Carolina wrens in the U.S. They’ve led to population explosions among some feeder-loving species like great tits and blue tits in the UK—which sounds like a positive outcome until you learn about the losers in that numbers game: less dominant woodland species that fare poorly against increased competition for food and nesting habitat.
First, Do No Harm
The news isn’t all bad. Research shows that supplemental food can help individual birds attracted to feeders through better fitness, survival rates, and reproductive success. But less time has been spent exploring the flip sides: What happens when formerly migrating birds stay in place and compete for resources with longtime winter residents? Does feeding increase songbird predator populations, posing increased threats to vulnerable species? How does feeding affect plants reliant on birds for seed dispersal and pollination? What’s the environmental cost of growing commercial bird seed in monocultures and shipping it to distant places, and how do those industrial crops affect birds native to the lands where they grow? (As I’ve written previously, here in the U.S., blackbirds are hazed and sometimes killed for eating sunflower seed crops.)
Such open questions merit “urgent empirical research,” wrote Alexander Lees and Jack Shutt of Manchester Metropolitan University in England in a paper called “Killing with Kindness,” adding that enough evidence exists to warrant reduction of feeding near core habitats of sensitive species. They suggest invoking the precautionary principle and taking action before it’s too late.
That’s similar to the “first, do no harm” approaches to bird feeding that many ecologists have long advocated. But it’s a tricky issue for animal and environmental organizations to navigate. Though wildlife experts almost universally agree that generalized handouts are problematic for animal health and safety, songbirds are treated as an exception. Even scientists who urge caution usually stop short of advising people with a passion for bird feeding to cease altogether.
Instead, they recommend cautious steps based on local circumstances and context: If an outbreak of salmonellosis or trichomoniasis is detected among birds in your region, remove feeders temporarily and disinfect your birdbaths. If you live in bear country where human-wildlife conflict is increasing, stop feeding birds altogether—a recommendation that some local governments make too. And if conditions are less risky and you decide to feed birds, follow best practices for feeder placement, food selection, and prevention of spillage that attracts other animals and increases potential for conflicts.
Let Plants Feed and Shelter Birds
Ultimately, the most thoughtful approach is to learn more about songbirds and their natural habitat, says John Griffin, urban wildlife director at the Humane Society of the United States (now called Humane World for Animals). What plants do they eat? Where do they nest? “If you really care about these animals and if you really want to help them, you’ve got to go deeper,” he says. “You’ve got to understand them and understand what you’re doing that may be causing them harm. Learning more about the animals in your yard can also turn wildlife-watching into a more joyful and enlightening experience.”
In the backyard of their townhome, where development supplants natural lands, Griffin’s family puts up a feeder, but only as a supplement to their native plant garden. Many people treat feeders as a replacement for habitat, hanging them in yards mostly covered in lawn—akin to building a house with no walls. Without plants, birds have no protection from weather and predators, no place to nest and rest, and few insects and spiders to feed their young, most of whom can’t survive without arthropods in their diets.
Lack of natural habitat also makes for poor wildlife-watching. “You really just don’t realize how empty your yard is until you fill it up with wildflowers and see all the different kinds of bees and butterflies and interesting insects,” says writer Asher Elbein, whose research for an eye-opening Scientific American article on the impacts of bird feeding encouraged him to continue adding habitat outside his Austin, Texas, rental home.
Even balconies, patios, and small spaces like Elbein’s can be wildlife oases and cost little to create. An “accomplished scavenger,” Elbein gathers fallen leaves and dead wood from neighbors so juncos and other birds can forage, fills planters with seeds of native wildflowers that hummingbirds visit, and turns buckets into fountains for all the animals. “Once you learn to stop seeing [that] the only worthwhile nature and wildlife is the birds at your feeder,” Elbein says, “you get a much healthier yard and, frankly, a much more interesting yard.”
Though birdfeeders are often touted as a way to engage with nature, it was the lack of one that inspired me to create an oasis. After seeing sparrows devour seedheads of switchgrass one winter, I thought about how many more birds I could help. Twenty years later, we have thousands of birdfeeders—in the form of native thistles where goldfinches flock, fallen leaves where northern flickers drill down for ants, maple trees that brown creepers scale to find insects beneath the bark, and coral honeysuckles, columbines, and red buckeyes to welcome hummingbirds’ return each spring. For these birds and other wildlife in our sanctuary, it’s the native plants—not feeders filled with nonnative seed from faraway places—that say, “Welcome Home.”
A version of this article appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of All Animals magazine.