What should I say to my grandparents to make them believe me that bread is not good for gulls and ducks!!!
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If their defence is that the gulls and ducks love to eat the bread, remind them that children love to eat sweets and that they likely wouldnât take that as justification for raising children on a diet mainly composed of sweetsâŚ
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I never thought of that I will make sure I tell them that next time I see them
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maybe âthe stuffing goes in the other wayââŚ
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Itâs far from being straightforward, Mallards not only survive on bread, they multiply extremly fast, research on bad side of bread (black mostly) is scarce.
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Here in Auckland NZ ducks die of botulism, ie paralysis leading to drowning or asphyxiation on land, in slow moving water where people feed ducks bread. Bread in the water contributes to botulism, which kills ducks. Bread near the water may easily end up in the water.
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If they enjoy feeding the ducks, you could suggest they use foods other than bread which are more nutritious/like what ducks might eat naturally. There are plenty of suggestions online (like https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-wildlife/keeping-our-ducks-healthy/six-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-feed-ducks) which are cheap and many folks have at home.
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Allow me to play devilâs advocate for the grandparents - where and how often are they feeding bread to ducks and gulls? For example, this is something I used to do with my grandmother when I was little, but our bread handouts were far from the only thing the ducks ate. They were not pond residents, but healthy wild mallards that lived and migrated along the gulf coast, groups only visiting us from time to time. In this situation, bread (effectively candy) is fine as it is in moderation.
Malnutrition from eating too much bread may cause âangel wingâ in addition to other bad stuff. If they are heavily feeding bread to resident ducks, yes, convince them to feed other things!
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I like âdevilâs advocatesâ. Itâs a role that I adopt many times! I think you have something here - a wild duck, gull, can survive some poor food, but if it is their main diet, it could prove problematic. Then I think of all the gulls (and cobra chickens) living in landfill sites, and wonder about what sort of selection is going on. They seem to thrive on our waste, and I suspect that when the balloon goes up, they will be the ones to inherit the earth.
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I read recently that the herring gulls living off dumps and litter in cities are on average heavier than ones from wild places, but have lower breeding success.
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Can it be connected to overpopulated colonies of city birds?
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I was reading The Seabirdâs Cry, by Adam Nicholson. p. 144: Pierotti and Annett, Univ. Kansas, looked at Western Gulls on Alcatraz Island for 12 years. The adults didnât live as long as their wild food counterparts. Fewer eggs hatched and fewer chicks fledged, the food not good enough for usual chick development. Elsewhere they found Herring Gulls feeding on human rubbish laid fewer eggs, had fewer live chicks per clutch and fewer survivors. âA junk diet was making junk birds.â
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There seems to be no scientific evidence to support this. And the same goes for feeding bread to waterfowl in general. As with all topics on the internet (and most other popular media), itâs very easy to find all shades of âexpertâ opinion, but much harder to find verifiable evidence.
The skeptics stackexchange site is usually fairly good on this kind of topic, but it wasnât able to reach any firm conclusions either - see: Is bread bad for ducks?.
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Two more
https://www.theswansanctuary.org.uk/cause/official-statement-bread-queens-swan-marker/
https://corvid-isle.co.uk/thoughts-bread-angel-wing-wild-birds
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I read this (as I first heard about this condition) and it says itâs usually connected with high protein diet (but also said about high energy diet, bread is one I guess) and only in yound birds (so it wonât hapen in adult birds we feed in 99% cases).
https://www.fresheggsdaily.blog/2019/03/preventing-and-treating-angel-wing-in.html
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I never fed ducks bread, but if I was eating an apple where there were gulls around Iâd give them the core. They swallow them whole! I have also been guilty of feeding gulls pizza crusts, although very rarely.
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My sister has a picture of a gull swallowing a Pisaster ochraceus whole. Omnivores.
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Itâs not too often about twice a week.
Although theyâre not the only ones on average about three times a day they get feed breed
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