The welfare implications of supplementary bird feeding, including benefits, risks, and best practices for supporting wild bird populations.
Wild bird feeding provides genuine welfare benefits when done well and causes genuine harm when done poorly. The concentration effect of feeders creates disease transmission risk that requires regular cleaning to mitigate. The attractant effect draws birds into proximity with domestic cats — one of the most significant anthropogenic sources of bird mortality. Feeding nutritionally inappropriate foods causes metabolic harm that would not occur without the feeder. None of these harms are reasons to stop feeding birds — they are reasons to feed birds responsibly: clean feeders every two weeks, remove if disease is detected, manage cat access near feeders, and provide species-appropriate foods.