By comparing the fate of artificial birds nests close and far away from supplementary deer feeding sites located in the Carpathian Mountains in central Europe, researchers at the POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES found that those birds nests in the vicinity of feeding sites were depredated twice as much as nests not located near feeding sites................ This "predation hotspot" effect extends far away from the feeding site itself: in a radius of 1-km............. This would mean that in one fifth of this area, ground-nesting birds will have little chance to see their eggs hatching................ These sites attract not only deer and wild boar but also corvids, rodents, bears and other species of nest predators, which are not the target of the artificial feeding............. Thinking about all the states in the USA which allow bear baiting and the artificial feeding of deer, I bemoan how severe a toll this practice is having on our own ground nesting birds, many of them dwindling populations of neo-tropical Warblers that fly from South America to nest in our forests and fields every Spring

ARTIFICIAL FEEDING OF UNGULATES INCREASE BIRD NEST PREDATION
URL: ScienceDaily

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Wild Boar attracted to artifical feeding site