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Feeding animals causes death

When visiting or roaming around the Bow Valley don’t you just love it when occasionally you catch a whiff from a local restaurant that is so tantalizing, so tempting, so mouth watering that you simply can’t pass it by? As a light breeze wafts over yo

When visiting or roaming around the Bow Valley don’t you just love it when occasionally you catch a whiff from a local restaurant that is so tantalizing, so tempting, so mouth watering that you simply can’t pass it by?

As a light breeze wafts over you, carrying a heady aroma of something delectable which then embraces your nostrils, causing you salivate, it’s hard to ignore the fact that you’re suddenly hungry.

Well, for those unaware – that’s what even dead, rotting food smells like to much of our toothy wildlife. For bears, wolves and coyotes, garbage we humans would find absolutely disgusting, revolting to the nth degree, is like nectar of the gods.

Imagine then, the aromas emanating from our campgrounds – steaks on the fire, savoury condiments like ketchup and barbecue sauce, sweet goodies like cookies or s’mores… Hey, even a new bale of disposable diapers has its own perfumed scent. Then again, to some wildlife, used diapers you haven’t disposed of yet have an allure as well.

The thing is, feeding wildlife and leaving food in campgrounds, even if you think it’s cute, making for a great holiday photo, or you believe you’re keeping said animal from starvation’s door, feeding often results in dead animals (see front page and pages 15 and 18).

In this valley, we don’t really care if you get slapped with a ticket or fine for feeding animals or leaving food at your campsite, we care that it can lead to the death of our wildlife. In the end, wildlife managers shooting a wolf that became habituated to humans feeding it is no different than a bear or wolf being killed by a vehicle because it’s prowling roadways, looking for more humans to feed it.

You can’t blame wildlife for being drawn in by savoury or disgusting aromas. Say you’re a 400-pound grizzly and you feel peckish. What would you rather do, spend a few hours in buffalo berry (shepherdia) bushes scarfing down thousands of tiny morsels, or mosey on over to a campground to smash open a cooler, rip through a tent or just troll for leftovers and garbage?

Breaking open a bag of garbage or, say, smashing open a container of peanut butter, puts a lot more calories in their belly – right now – than hours in a berry patch.

Wolves, on the other hand, don’t really even have the option of filling up on berries as they are less of an herbivore. Everything they catch and kill requires the burning of thousands of calories. So – run around for a couple of hours trying to catch and kill a rabbit or young mule deer or, again, patrol a campground for easy eats? Easy decision.

Feeding from vehicles along roadways is no less a problem, as wildlife then lose their fear of our cars and are likely to then be struck as they seek out an easy bite.

Life is harsh and difficult for wildlife, so there’s no way they’re going to pass up an easy meal.

And that’s where humans come in. Quit feeding our wildlife and keep your campsite policed and leftovers and garbage-free. Please.

That goes for our less lethal wildlife as well. Just last week in Banff a mule deer was spotted near Tim Hortons, right in town, completely surrounded by people trying to feed it. The thing is, if that deer suddenly felt threatened and charged out of the crowd or lashed out with its hooves, it could have resulted in human injury – again, because people were feeding it.

In the end, feeding wildlife on purpose, or through negligence in leaving campsites littered, can mean death – and that blood is on the hands of everybody who took part in promoting unnatural behaviour in a beast.


Rocky Mountain Outlook

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