Feeding Wildlife

Wildlife feeding has numerous conseqences that are not beneficial to teh environment. These include:

Unnatural increases animal numbers
Increases in aggression between animals as they compete for food
Attraction of predators to the feeding sites
Nutritionally imbalance of the animals diet
Increased risk of disease

There are means to attract fauna without feeding them, by planting specific species in your garden.

Bird Feeding in the Dandenong Ranges issues Parks Victoria has produced guidance on this issue see the - Wildlife feeding note

Campaigns to stop bird feeding

Bird feeding in and around the Dandenong Ranges National Park has been a contentious issue for many years. Many of you will have seen the large tourist buses that deliver visitors to Grant's picnic ground to feed to birds, the lorikeets and the cockatoos. And you may also be aware of the destruction that the cockatoos in the numbers that now exist seem to be able to inflict on vegetation and the odd house!

About Sulfur Crested Cockatoos

Resources:

Reducing cockatoo damage to trees, fixtures, houses, sports grounds and the environment by Ian Temby, Flora and Fauna Branch September, 2003

Australia Museum Fact Sheet on Sulfur Crested Cockatoos

Bird Feeding Working Group

A public meeting was held on the 12th of June 2008 on the issue of Cockatoo damage to property in the Dandenong Ranges.

Over 130 people attended this event, many with stories of the incredible destructive capacity of the sulfur crested cockatoo.

If you would like to join a working group to take forward some of the suggestions for action made that evening, please provide your contact details here.

This working group will focus on the Bird Feeding issues and how they relate to the problems that people are experiencing with the cockatoos, as well as the negative impacts that this practice has on other species and habitats.