If you leave it, you lose it: Managing human–wildlife feeding interactions requires constant attention, interdisciplinary approaches and long‐term monitoring

Human–wildlife interactions are becoming more common as we progress through the Anthropocene. People tend to feed wildlife more regularly as it is often popularised by social media and can counteract their disconnect from the natural world. These interactions impact wildlife behaviour, feeding ecology and zoonotic transmission dynamics. Due to the risks involved, wildlife practitioners seek effective management strategies to protect both visitors and wildlife from injuries, disease spread and further consequences for wildlife behaviour and population dynamics. We present here, for the first time, a 7‐year longitudinal study on the changing trends of visitors feeding fallow deer in an urban park in response to three management campaigns conducted before, during and after the COVID‐19 pandemic. Each contributed to our understanding of the successes, failures and lasting impacts (if any) of these management actions under different social contexts and park accessibility. While the campaigns were somewhat successful in immediately reducing feeding levels, their impacts were not lasting and feeding increased in subsequent years. Management campaigns can be difficult to implement due to financial, logistical and priority‐alignment constraints, emphasising the importance of investing in measures that work and are sustainable long term. Constantly changing audiences, a sense of entitlement to wildlife interactions, and a mismatch between scientific research and management needs remain strong barriers to the alleviation of human–wildlife conflicts. An interdisciplinary design approach, involving all stakeholders as well as social scientists and media communication experts, is needed to create management campaigns that are both practical and incite lasting behavioural change. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.