Effects of bird-feeding activities on the health of wild birds.

ABSTRACT: Among the most popular reasons that people feed wild birds is that they want to help birds. The extent to which supplemental food helps birds, however, is not well established. From spring 2011 to spring 2014, we examined how feeding of wild birds influences the health of individual birds at forested sites in central Illinois, USA. Specifically, we compared three forested sites where we provided supplemental food with three forested sites for which no supplemental food was available and monitored changes in the individual health of birds. In addition, we determined whether any changes in bird health had occurred after feeders had been removed from sites 10 months before. Generally, the individual health of birds improved with supplemental feeding, including increased antioxidant levels, re

SUBMITTER: Wilcoxen TE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4778448 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature