The seemingly harmless activity of tossing a few breadcrumbs or a bit of lettuce off your sandwich to a row of ducks wading off the shoreline is actually very harmful to those ducks, no matter how adorable it looks.
While some are learning that bread is a terrible food for all birds, even the most well-meant handful of seeds tossed to the waterfowl can and does contribute to disease, behavioural changes and even starvation in birds, according to a wildlife rehabilitator.
"You're putting your lives in danger, and in jeopardy by causing health issues and possibly death, as well," said Debra Spilar, director and custodian at Procyon Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre.
Though one single person feeding a couple of ducks one time may not be detrimental to their health, the activity is common and happens daily because so many people partake.
"You get one person thinking they're doing a good thing, but that one person isn't just one person, it could turn out to be 1,000 people," said Spilar.
First and foremost, bread is bad for birds, stresses Spilar.
Birds eating bread can experience irregular feather growth that can make it impossible for them to fly and properly migrate, it leads to malnutrition because bread doesn't contain the nutrients the birds need to grow, develop and maintain their systems, and bread can mould in the water before it's eaten by a bird or turtle or fish, which gets sick from eating mouldy bread.
But even if people feed birds things they can eat, like lettuce, corn and oats, the act of regular human feeding is still harmful to the animals.
"They realize this is a food source for them, and they lose their ability to start hunting ... they rely on this food source," explains Spilar. "What happens in the winter time, when they've lost their natural ability to hunt and forage ... now they're not going to learn to eat greens and nutrients ... they'll starve."
The behaviour changes go beyond a loss of foraging and hunting skills. The birds can get aggressive in competing for a food source that's scattered in one place (like a boat launch) by people who stop by.
Habituating is a problem for all wildlife. It occurs when an animal is fed by a human enough to understand that a human is a food source and there's no negative consequences from that food source.
"Now, they think every person is going to feed them," said Spilar. "What happens when they go up to a person? For instance, if a raccoon was hand raised by somebody and now it's in a park and he goes up to somebody and he's pulling on their pant leg. He's not sick, he only wants food, but what does everybody think? Rabies. They call animal control and he's euthanized."
Seagulls get cursed for stealing ice cream from a cone or fries from fingers, but somewhere along the line, the gull learned that people provide food.
The Town of Aurora advises animal lovers that feeding wildlife can actually do more harm than good but it's a regular sight at many local ponds and wildlife areas. In many municipalities, it's technically illegal to feed wild animals, which includes the ducks, geese and swans.
Ontario's ministry of environment and energy explains that feeding wildlife can and does also attract what may be considered "unwanted" animals to your property, like coyotes.
In other words, animals spend a lot of time looking for food, and no skunk, raccoon or coyote seems to mind if the buffet was intended for a bunny or a duck.
A food source that attracts flocks of birds or other animals can also become a place where disease spreads farther and faster because animals are congregating in masses.
Backyard bird feeders are exempt from the town's wildlife feeding bylaw, but spilled seeds must be cleaned up.
Those bird feeders can still be harmful because they do become reliable food sources, so any gap in provision can be difficult for a bird or animal to adjust to. Bird seed can also attract other animals to a property.
The Ministry of Environment advises appreciating wildlife from a distance, attracting wildlife to your property by improving natural habitat and by protecting and preserving existing habitats, and to keep household waste, compost and pet food out of reach for wild animals.
