The recent spread of Coronavirus and subsequent restrictions on travel have led to a significant and noticeable drop in tourist numbers in many areas around the globe. It is also bringing to the surface issues regarding public health and safety. One issue that is often overlooked is the feeding of wildlife in tourist areas.
Photo credit: Anna Ayvazyan
One video being shared shows a large group of monkeys in Thailand spilling out into the road, fighting over a yogurt cup. In Japan, the deer of Nara Park are roaming outside the park and deeper into the surrounding city in search of food, hungry from the lack of the usual crackers they would receive from tourists. While it may seem like a fun activity on vacation, feeding wildlife can be harmful to their health.
1.Poor/Inappropriate Diet
Photo Credit: Viral Press
Animals are evolved to eat a very specific diet, one that does not include the numerous junk foods that humans eat. If they eat too much of the wrong foods, it can have serious consequences for their health. Our junk foods are highly addictive (have you ever eaten just 1 chip?), and once exposed many animals may prefer the high calorie highly flavorful human foods. You will probably not be surprised to hear that when wild animals eat too much junk food, they can develop some of the same problems as humans. Obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, joint issues. The reduced mobility and added pressure on their immune system can make it more difficult for them to forage for natural foods and encourage them to continue going after the easy human foods.
Eating nutritionally deficient foods (or the wrong nutrition balance) can also impact the growth and development of young animals. A good example of this is the feeding of bread to ducks and waterfowl. Bread is not a natural part of their diet and lacks the nutrients they need. Birds that eat too much bread (or popcorn, or crackers) can go on to develop conditions such as angel wing and metabolic bone disease (MBD). Birds with these conditions have weak or malformed bones which can lead to malformed wings and feathers that grow in wrong. If not caught and corrected in the early stages, birds suffering from these conditions become unable to fly, leaving them vulnerable to predators and less able to compete and find food.
By Cengland0 – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4936599
I mentioned the addictive nature of human foods before, and this is important because it feeds (pun intended) into another problem. Once animals get hooked on human foods and associate human areas with that easy food, they will actively go in search of it. This can mean monkeys stealing food from tourists, deer going after the trash from food stalls, or bears breaking into cars. In my visits to Nara park which is famous for its friendly deer, I have personally seen people holding out sharp wooden skewers, smelling of sauce, out to the deer to eat or plastic containers for them to lick the sauce out of. Despite signs warning people to keep their food and trash out of reach and put away, many see this as a way to entice the deer closer, laughing as the deer follow them around. The direct consequences of this have already been seen as multiple deer in the park have been found dead with stomachs full of plastic. Enticed by the smells on the trash, they end up eating it and developing blockages or internal damage that prevents them from eating.
2.Exceed Natural Carrying Capacity
Regularly feeding wildlife can artificially increase the population size in 1 of 2 ways. The first is that it attracts individuals that would normally be more spread out in the environment to a smaller more concentrated area. Animals naturally devote a lot of their time foraging for food and moving throughout their environmental range in search of that food. When large numbers of tourists become a reliable source of easy food, animals will be drawn to that and converge on the area. The other way population size increases is through natural births. If animals can meet their caloric needs and fill their stomachs with easy food quickly, this frees them from having to spend as much time and energy foraging. This allows them to spend their time on… other pursuits, leading to more babies.
The consequence of this increase in population size is that the animals may exceed the environment’s carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is the number of animals (or plants, or people) that an area can support without becoming degraded. This means that the environment has enough resources (food, water, space) for that population to survive. Once that population exceeds that capacity, there may be environmental degradation (for example, eat all the plants or trample the ground and then nothing can grow) and because there are not enough resources to go around, it can lead to animals going hungry and possibly dying. This may be happening to the deer in Nara park, who, due to the lack of tourist handouts, are leaving the park to head into the city in search of food.
3.Increased Disease/Injuries
When more animals are drawn into an area and in close contact with each other, this can lead to greater competition and fighting over food. The animals can be injured through these fights. Also, having the animals in close quarters in high numbers, where they are all eating and pooping in the same concentrated area, makes it easier for the animals to spread disease and parasites to each other. A study assessing stingrays fed as an attraction in the Cayman Islands showed that the tourist-fed stingrays had more parasites, more injuries (bites from other stingrays competing for food), and higher stress levels. With higher stress levels and open wounds, injured animals can have a harder time recovering and may spend longer periods healing than in less crowded conditions. So even though it may be an easy meal for them, the conditions created by tourist feeding sites can actually cause greater disease and injury spread.
Photo by Christian MacMillan on Unsplash
And of course, feeding encourages animals to come closer to human areas. When they try to scavenge or are hanging out waiting for food, this puts them at risk of further injury. Currently, herds of deer at Nara have been wandering city streets and disrupting traffic. Animals gathering near roads or crossing roads looking for food can be hit by cars. Animals that get into garbage can be cut digging through or trying to eat the garbage. (I’m sure we’ve all seen the videos of animals with their heads stuck in food cans.) There are also dogs and unkind humans for them to contend with, so it would be in their best interest to stay away.
4.Reduced Ability to Survive on Their Own
If animals get used to handouts from humans they can lose vital survival skills. This is because they will spend less time foraging and gaining experience of what foods they can eat and where or how to find them. This is especially a problem if the adults are choosing to go for the easy food and don’t pass the necessary survival knowledge on to their young. Instead, the young are led to the handouts or the garbage to search for food. One study showed that bears learned nuisance behaviors, such as raiding livestock feed and garbage, from their mothers. Rather than learn proper foraging behavior. the behavior of relying on human foods is passed on to the next generation. Without these foraging skills and knowledge, it can be difficult for animals to feed themselves once the tourist handouts stop. If they are not given food to supplement their diet, and if they are unable to find food from lack of experience or lack of natural food, they may starve to death. Otherwise, they will continue scavenging and targeting human foods which will put them in more conflict with humans.
Photo by anthony renovato on Unsplash
5.Vulnerable to Predators
Finally, the last reason I want to cover is that feeding wildlife can make them more vulnerable to predators. Ill, injured, or less mobile animals congregating in the same area make an attractive target for predators. They are also in a predictable location and higher numbers which could mean an increased chance of success for the predator. Studies show that exposure and habituation to humans can make animals less wary of natural predators or other humans, or more bold in their interaction with predators. This has been demonstrated in tourist habituated gorillas that were slower to run or hide from poachers and were killed with greater frequency than non-habituated gorillas. While the gorillas were not fed by tourists, it does show that increased exposure to humans can have serious consequences when it alters animal behavior.
Feeding wildlife has direct (nutrition, disease, injuries) and indirect (survival skills, predator vulnerability) consequences. When we travel, we want to have a good time and enjoy the chance to see local wildlife. However, we need to respect wildlife and recognize the influence of our actions. Animals will eat any food they can get because they are concerned with getting enough to survive. They do not know the nutritional or caloric content of what they are receiving, but we do. It is up to us to make the responsible choice, and push aside our self-indulgence for the health and wellbeing of the animals.
Sources
- https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/04/grizzly-bears-have-a-human-problem/523653/
- https://www.coastalmarineresearchgroup.com/PDFs/Orams%202002%20Feeding%20wildlife%20as%20a%20tourism%20attraction%20Issues%20and%20impacts.pdf
- https://scihub.bban.top/10.1016/j.biocon.2009.03.022
- https://scihub.bban.top/10.1016/j.tree.2015.09.010
- https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/68246/1/ASM_27_15.pdf
