March 27, 2017
If you’ve walked through a park with a body of water, you’ve probably passed a sign that warns you not to feed the birds.
And you might have ignored the rules while tossing a few pieces off the end of a hotdog bun toward a hoard of hungry, honking geese.
But as a viral photo of a park sign being shared on social media points out, while feeding birds bread might seem like a harmless and fun pastime, it actually exposes the wildlife to a huge health risk and pollutes their habitat by "causing nasty surface algae."
I'VE BEEN FEEDING DUCKS BREAD THIS WHOLE TIME IM SO ASHAMED IM SUCH A MONSTER pic.twitter.com/dzyicjJc7Q
— DALLA$ (@proudsIytherin) March 22, 2017
As the informative sign notes, bread doesn’t contain “the right nutrition or calories that we (birds) need to keep us warm in winter.”
It goes on to share some better bird snacks, like peas, corn and birdseed, if you must feed the wildlife.
Popular Science elaborated on the viral tweet by further explaining why bread can be harmful to birds: “Baby birds are more likely to end up malnourished, without the nutrients they need to grow properly…Meanwhile, grown-up birds who gorge on carbs are more likely to get fat and sick.”
