The tufted duck is the most widespread diving duck in the UK, widely resident on urban park lakes and reservoirs where it is often highly habituated to human presence.
Tufted duck welfare on urban water bodies is generally positive given high food availability and reduced predator pressure, but supplementary feeding creates welfare concerns. Excessive bread feeding from the public provides poor nutrition and can cause angel wing deformity in ducklings from diets too high in carbohydrate and too low in nutrients. Habituation to humans makes urban tufted ducks vulnerable to direct human interference including deliberate feeding of inappropriate foods. Lead poisoning from discarded fishing weights and line on urban water bodies is a welfare concern. Boat traffic on urban lakes disrupts diving behavior. Maintaining water quality in urban lakes supports the invertebrate prey base that tufted ducks depend on.