Architect1776 wrote:
Those small birds survived for centuries without your bird feeder in the winter. Now they depend on it and will perish when you cease feeding them. That is evil.
I was not going to weigh in, but enough is enough. The combination of belligerence and ignorance in your posts just should not go without being challenged. This topic has been exhaustively studied and before you shoot your mouth off you should do a little research. This discussion is just too important to be trashed by your ill-informed and mean-spirited commentary.
Song birds are in decline everywhere because of environmental degradation and the threats from automobiles, window collisions and house cats. Oil and fat rich seeds are important for birds, especially in the fall and winter, but the natural sources for those have largely disappeared due to development, competition from alien plants, and ever-increasing use of herbicides. More and more bird lovers are doing more than merely putting out feeders, and there is a growing movement to restore native plant communities and make other changes to public and private property to increase and improve habitat for endangered songbirds. Notably, the Audubon society, the Cornell bird lab, and many native plant societies and nature preservation organizations have led the way on this critical work.This is congruent with and complementary to efforts to save Lepidoptera species (butterflies and moths) - see the Xerxes society - as well as efforts to maintain the natural world for the benefit of those who enjoy hunting and fishing - see Ducks Unlimited.
Bird feeders are an important component in the ongoing desperate effort to save hundreds of songbird species that are at risk. Yes, the birds are to some extent dependent upon feeders. That is because there is often nothing else for them to depend upon. Your idea that people with bird feeders are not aware of the complexity of this issue is to some extent true, but many are working to make people more aware of the problems and the opportunities for being part of the solution to songbird survival. You say that if people stopped feeding birds they would perish. Well, yes, that is true, if everyone stopped feeding birds many birds would perish. Right. Put your thinking cap on now and ponder that for a moment. Birds would perish should everyone cease putting feeders out, but not because they have been made "dependent" (is there some sort of ersatz simple-minded political argument lurking behind that comment?) but rather because they
are dependent.
Restoration of native plant communities is critical for successful songbird nesting, because the nestlings need the high protein diet found in insects and robust insect populations depend upon diverse native plant communities. Birds can survive on fruit and seeds, but most birds must have a massive abundance of insects - in the right place at the right time for migratory birds - in order to successfully raise their young. That means the native plants upon which the insects are dependent.
Bird feeders have become an emergency stopgap measure. Not an ideal solution, of course. Ideal would be a massive environmental restoration effort, which would of course benefit all wildlife - all of life, including human life. But somehow, based on your "waco environmentalists" crack, I suspect that you would oppose anything like that.
Mike