Feeding Wild Animals: The Urge, the Interaction, and the Consequences

Feeding mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis) by tourists was studied on Mt. Evans in Colorado. Interviews revealed that one important reason why people hand-feed is to have the animal take food from their hand to show that it trusted them. Many believe that animals are better judges of people than are people, and that to be trusted by a wild animal reflects favorably on a person. However, feeding created a point source of food, which made it possible for an individual sheep to dominate access to food and to prevent the other group members from reaching the food. This intensified aggressive interactions and social stress among the sheep.In recent years there has been an increase in non-consumptive uses of wild animals, such as birdwatching. Although the term “non-consumptive” is meant to connote a way of enjoying wildlife that does the wildlife no harm, some non-consumptive uses do cause wildlife considerable harm (Boyle and Samson, 1983, 1985). Feeding wild animals is a common non-consumptive use of wildlife, but little is known about its causes and impact (Tate, 1983; Levinson, 1984).This study addresses the following questions: 1) Why do people want to feed wild animals? 2) What form does the interaction take, and to what extent is the form drawn from the social repertoire of each species? and 3) What are the consequences for the wild animals and for the people?