A squirrel edges closer on the trail, eyes on your trail mix. One peanut can't hurt — can it? It can. Feeding wild animals harms them, and it can end with them hurting you.
What a snack does to a wild animal
It is the wrong food. Human food is not healthy for wildlife. An animal that fills up on chips and crackers stops eating what it actually needs.
It stops them feeding themselves. Animals fed by people stop hunting, foraging and scavenging the way they naturally would — they would rather get chips or die trying.
It teaches them to depend on us. Biologists call this food conditioning, and it ends badly:
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Dependence | the animal comes to rely on people for food, and can sicken or starve |
| No fear | it loses its wariness of humans |
| Begging and stealing | it begs, raids picnics, rips into packs and tents |
| Danger | because it walks right up, people mistake it for tame — but if it feels threatened it may bite, kick, charge or attack |
| The end | an animal that becomes too aggressive may have to be killed |
It doesn't stop with one animal, either: feeding wildlife can affect a whole ecosystem.
What you can do
- Never feed wildlife — not a crumb.
- Store your food and stash your trash. Leftovers and crumbs feed animals just as surely as a handout. Clean up after every meal and follow Leave No Trace.
- Give animals room. Keep a safe distance; ask the park what its minimum distances are.
- Learn more: the NPS 7 ways to safely watch wildlife and the risks people pose to wildlife.
A card to save or share. It says: feeding wildlife is dangerous for the animals and for you — animals that rely on human food can turn aggressive, or stop hunting and foraging and starve. Never feed wildlife, clean up and leave no trace, and keep your distance.
Pass it on
Nobody knows everything about looking after parks. The next time you see someone about to share a snack with a squirrel, tell them why not — they'll probably say what you did: I didn't know that!
Sources
Written from "I Didn't Know That!: Don't Feed Wildlife," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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