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Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks
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The Reality of Feeding

  • Supplemental feeding encourages wildlife to become dependent on handouts that are not part of their natural diets.
  • Human foods are usually nutritionally inadequate for wildlife and may lead to subsequent health problems.
  • Young animals that are taught to depend on humans sometimes never develop normal foraging behavior, and could starve if the artificial food sources are removed or more likely become nuisances and come in conflict with humans.
  • Wildlife lose their fear of humans and learn that they can boldly forage for human food, consequently conflicts, nuisance behavior, and risks to human safety are sure to occur.
  • Wild animals being fed by humans may congregate in unnaturally high numbers, and this is the perfect opportunity for diseases to spread. As populations of deer, raccoons, skunks and others grow unnaturally from being fed, a small number of diseased animals mixed in close quarters with a large group spread the disease to the whole group. Disease such as rabies, distemper and many others which are dependent on high animal populations.
  • Artificial feeding increases wild animal populations, which in turn increases stress. Such stressful conditions increase the incidence of fighting and injury among animals.
  • Feeding wildlife, especially prey species such as deer, squirrels and rabbits, often causes a domino or food chain effect. Due to such feeding, the prey densities increase, which in turn attracts predators such as coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions. Example: Increase deer numbers in your yard and you may be inviting a mountain lion for a free meal.
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