Don’t feed the wildlife in Rossmoor

Residents are reminded not to feed wild animals in Rossmoor.

While seeing wild animals up close is enjoyable, providing them with a reliable food source leads to unintended consequences, such as:

• Young animals who depend on a human-provided food source may not fully develop foraging skills they will need when they leave their parents’ territory.

• Wild animals fed by humans often lose their fear of people. When they later approach humans, they can be mistaken as rabid or aggressive and be killed for it.

• The food humans feed to wild animals is not nutritionally complete and can cause serious health problems, especially to young, developing animals. It can also cause mouth injuries, throat obstructions and death.

• A constant food source may attract many more animals than normal to an area. This increases the risk of communicable diseases and fighting between competing animals. It may also disrupt normal migration patterns.

• When an unnatural food supply is available, animals may produce more young, creating an imbalance in the number of animals an area’s food supply can natually sustain.

• Wildlife can misinterpret human actions. They may not know where the food stops and fingers begin.

• Many people do not think of the impact on their neighbors when they feed wild animals. Wild animals who have lost their fear of humans do not discriminate between one person and another and can pester the neighbors, expecting to be fed.

• Leftover food can attract rats and other unwanted rodents.