Wildlife Flock to Backyards for Food from People
Published:27 Oct.2020 Source:North Carolina State University
To see wildlife in the Triangle, sometimes you need go no further than your own backyard. A new study helps explain why some animals are sometimes more often found in suburban areas than wild ones: because people are feeding them -- sometimes accidentally -- and to a lesser degree, providing them with shelter.
"They're using the gardens a little bit, they're using the brush piles a little bit, and they're using the water features, but feeding has the most dramatic influence on animal activity in the backyard," said Roland Kays, research associate professor at North Carolina State University and director of the Biodiversity & Earth Observation Lab at the NC Museum of Natural Resources.