Are Well-Meaning Bird Feeders Attracting Vermin? [Block Talk Survey]

ACROSS AMERICA — We caught wind of this discussion on a neighborhood social media feed:

“Please don’t put bird feeders in your back yard!” someone wrote. “They only attract vermin, not birds! I found raccoons chewing up my attic and possums destroying my pavement just to make a closer home to the bird feeders!”

Many people enjoy attracting birds to their yards. They’re pretty to look at, one of the simple pleasures of winter. The feeders can help birds survive during migration and harsh winters, according to research. But Paul Baicich, co-author of “Feeding Wild Birds In America: Culture, Commerce and Conservation,” published in 2015, suggests the main benefit is to humans.

“There’s nothing wrong with bird-feeding,” he wrote. “It’s wonderful. It introduces people to nature — in their backyard. It’s the intermediate step between sitting around the house and actually going out to a national wildlife refuge.”

He added, “The birds don’t need the feeders. We do.”

• Read Block Talk Survey Results: What Readers Told Us About Bird Feeders

But chances are good that bird feeders will attract other species, too — acrobatic squirrels, dexterous raccoons and opportunistic rats, for example. Bears sniff out bird feeders, too, and they can also attract outdoor cats that fight each other and stalk and kill the birds.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says that besides attracting bird predators, backyard feeders can increase bird collisions with windows or increase the chances of bird diseases.

“When birds mix at feeders, they’re not super neat,” Susan Morse, a writer and editor for the National Wildlife Refuge System wrote in a recent article on the Fish & Wildlife website. “Across the country, feeders have helped spread conjunctivitis in house finches; the eye disease impairs their vision, making it hard for them to detect predators and feed.”

Sam Droege, a Maryland-based wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, told Morse it’s “hard to ecologically justify removing native habitat to create a house and lawn, and then putting up feeders filled with bird seed.”

“It’s ironic, really,” he said, especially because it takes hundreds of acres of “ground-up prairie and swampland to produce” the bird seed.

Instead, he seeded his lawn with plants birds like to eat — wingstem and perennial sunflowers for goldfinches; asters, goldenrods and brown-eyed Susans for winter cardinals; and chokeberry, sumacs and spicebush for catbirds, thrashers and mockingbirds.

There are some things bird lovers can do to control the problem, such as watching the type of seed they’re feeding. Blends that contain millet, milo or sorghum tend to end up on the ground and attract rats. Storing bird seed in a metal container to eliminate rodent access helps, too.

What do you think about your neighbor's bird feeder? Have you had to deal with other wildlife attracted to the feeder? We’re asking for Block Talk, Patch’s exclusive neighborhood etiquette column. Just fill out the form below, and be assured that we won’t collect your email address.

Editor's Note: This survey closed on Feb. 29.