One of the neighborhood’s institutions, the feeding
of the ducks in Tenney Park, has been banned by the city.
Due to the continuing
problems with local duck and goose populations, the Madison Common Council
recently created an ordinance to ban feeding birds on public property
(Ordinance 8.42).
Many of you may have warm
memories of being a child, going to a beach or park and enticing bread to the
ducks. And it is a fun thing to do. But feeding ducks and other wild birds does
have serious consequences.
It is not good for the
ducks, for one thing. Bread doesn’t have the nutrition they need to stay
healthy and happy. It’s basically junk food for the birds. But once the
waterfowl get a taste of this free food, they get in the habit of eating the bread
and stop foraging for proper food of their own. They get lazy.
Feeding birds also
encourages them to stick around Madison when they should be migrating! The more
waterfowl that stay here, the more droppings there are in the parks, in the
water, and on the golf courses.
The problems the lakes and
parks experience due these animals is mostly from their droppings. About
fifteen years ago a radio program called “Earth Watch” included a
story of waterfowl dropping and the related closing of beaches. People involved
with the story worked with Madison park staff to sample the sand at Vilas
Beach. The samples showed an extremely high amount of fecal bacteria that could
be traced to the waterfowl at that beach, and their dropping.
The study prompted a new
procedure at our beaches. Each day the sand is turned over with a rake. This
exposes the sand to the sunlight, which kills the bacteria. The number of
closings at Vilas beach has been reduced.
However there are still a
significant number of beaches that are regularly closed due to high bacteria
counts in the water. The public Health Department monitors bacteria levels in
the water. When the amount of bacteria reaches a certain point, we have to
close our beaches for public safety reasons. Correspondingly, those beaches often
see numerous waterfowl, and it appears there is a relationship.
At our golf courses, it is
geese that are the biggest problem. Geese enjoy the well-kept grassy areas and
water hazards that abound on a golf course. Golfers don’t much enjoy the
droppings left behind by the geese.
“Geese are a big
problem at our courses,” says Golf supervisor Ray Shane. “There are
to many birds. One step we can take to discourage the geese is to stop feeding
them.”
The USDA Animal and Plant
health inspection Services agrees. One of the methods they recommend to
discourage waterfowl from settling in an area is to discontinue feeding. Their
website says, “Wild geese are capable of finding their own food and will
survive without handouts from people. Once feeding by humans is discontinued,
waterfowl will revert back to the better quality natural foods. In most
instances, the birds will leave.”
That is our hope. By not
feeding the waterfowl, we are encouraging them to find their own food and go
back to more natural habits.
The fine for feeding birds
on property? $10.00 with the possibility of a higher fee.
Please help in the effort.
Please don’t feed the ducks!
-from
the Fall, 2002 issue of Madison Park News
Return to Fall 2002 Table of Contents