I used to have a horse. He lived outdoors with a shelter year-round, 24/7—most domestic horses do. Still, one year, I spent more than $2,500 on rain sheets and blankets to protect him from the elements during fall and winter. I’d lie awake at night, listening to the wind howl outside my window. I’d drive to the barn at 3 a.m. I needed to see that he was okay. Nestled in the straw bed of his shelter, legs tucked under him, he’d blink at me sleepily, like, “Why are you here, human?” Once, I saw a cartoon tacked to the notice board in the barn. It showed a horse, draped in about 17 blankets, and another one, furry and naked. The naked horse asks, “Why are you wearing that?” and the blanketed horse says, “My owner was cold.”
The best thing that you can do for wildlife is leave it alone. I’ve written those words many times in this magazine. Except…I don’t want that to be true. Nobody does. We want to get close to wildlife, to interact with it, to help it. But there’s a line, and the human part of us makes it hard to understand when we’re crossing it.
“We put our feelings and choices on them, and we really can’t do that,” says Chris Earley, an interpretive biologist at the University of Guelph’s Arboretum. It doesn’t matter so much when we do that with our pets—me driving to the barn at 3 a.m. didn’t help my horse, but it also didn’t hurt him. But wild animals aren’t domesticated animals, and they sure as heck aren’t human beings.
“We like animals, and we want to help them,” says Sam Klarreich, a psychologist in Toronto. But people have a habit of misinterpreting animal behaviour in a way that supports their own thoughts but doesn’t actually reflect reality, he says. “That’s not to say we should never help. But when you jump in instead of stepping back, you can get yourself into trouble.” Worse, you can get the animal into trouble. So, how’s a cottager to know what’s okay and what’s not?
“Generally, nothing in nature needs our help,” says Gary Ure, the owner of Second Nature Wildlife Management in Gananoque, Ont. But certain species can benefit from it. Planting native flowers on your property helps pollinators, and leaving woody debris at the shoreline provides habitat for endangered turtles. Installing bat boxes and owl houses gives those struggling species a place to live. And plenty of seed-eating birds will happily take advantage of the buffet if you put out feeders. (See “5 Tips for Feeding Birds.”)
“Doing good feels good,” Sam Klarreich once told me. But the problem with the do-gooding moves that don’t cross a line is that they also don’t actually feel very helpful—and they don’t satisfy the need for the human-wildlife interaction that we crave. Not the way, say, “rescuing” a baby animal would.
“Many people with big hearts have taken in orphaned or injured wildlife in the hopes of caring for the animal,” says Alison Papas of the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Rosseau, Ont. Never mind that this is illegal—only a licensed rehabilitator can rehab wildlife—but “you’re actually doing the animal an incredible disservice in the long run,” she says. “The animal is going to have the best outcome if they’re in expert hands.”
The other problem is that you might be rescuing something that doesn’t need rescuing at all. “You need to know when to help,” says Papas. A baby deer curled up underneath a tree, for example, rarely needs your attention. Female deer intentionally leave their offspring alone for lengthy chunks of time during the day. The baby’s spotted coat helps camouflage it. It’s the right childcare strategy for her even if it seems wrong to us.
There are cases when you should step in, of course. If the animal is brought to you by a pet; if you see a dead parent nearby; if the animal is bleeding; if the animal has an obvious broken limb; if the animal is shivering; if the animal is crying and wandering all day long. But in all these cases, the correct thing to do is call a licensed local wildlife rehabilitator or sanctuary ASAP and get the animal to them within 24 hours, says Papas. They can advise you on how to bring the animal to them safely. Never bring it inside your cottage with the intention of rehabbing it yourself. Hollywood’s not going to release a movie about you dramatically making a phone call to save an innocent baby animal. But that’s what will actually help.
Feed the birds, just don’t feed anything else
No one is about to feed a bear intentionally, and cottagers know to not feed them unintentionally (by leaving out unsecured garbage, for example). But what’s the harm in feeding something smaller, something gentler, with no claws or sharp teeth, especially when it acts so friendly? Why is it okay to feed birds but deny everyone else? The main difference between feeding birds and feeding other wildlife is that “we’re not necessarily putting them in danger more than we would if we weren’t feeding them,” says Earley. There’s lots of research on the diets of seed-eating birds, so we know we can easily replicate it in a safe and healthy way. The same isn’t true for other wildlife. “All animals have specialized diets,” says Alison Papas. “They can become malnourished or die if they’re fed the wrong foods.” Or, if they’re fed the right foods in the wrong season. If you’re feeding an animal, “Are you feeding it what it would eat normally at that time of year?” says Earley. A white-tailed deer, for example, eats leafy plants in the summer, but its gut bacteria changes in the winter to allow it to digest twigs, a major food source when everything’s covered in snow.
Feeding birds also doesn’t alter their natural behaviour—not in a harmful way, at least. It won’t turn them into “nuisance” wildlife. In fact, a feeder won’t be much more likely to draw them to your cottage property in the first place, especially if your place is already bird-friendly—with native plants, lots of trees, and places to nest. (Research suggests that, depending on the species, only 10 to 20 per cent of a bird’s diet comes from feeders.) It also won’t prevent migration. Day-length cues, not food availability, trigger birds to head south in the fall, says Earley.
On the other hand, almost all other fed animals will lose their life-saving sense of fear of humans, says Papas. “They stay closer to people.” And while it might seem like a win for us—think of the great photo ops—it’s never a win for them. A friend of mine recently told me about a cottage she visited. When she got out of the car, a small herd of deer emerged. They got unnaturally, uncomfortably close. She found out that the cottage owners had been regularly feeding apples to the deer. The cottagers were happy about how pet-like the deer had become; she didn’t have the heart to tell them how bad of a mistake they were making. She worried that the deer would lose their ability to find food elsewhere, or would become habituated to cars and get injured by one, or both.
My friend wasn’t wrong about the cars. Wild animals that become comfortable around people also tend to stay closer to roadways. The grim truth? Ultimately, says Papas, this can result in hundreds of animals being killed every year. One summer, driving with my sister through Algonquin Provincial Park, we passed a moose and her calf standing close to the road. Lesley wanted to stop. Of course she did. I refused. Twenty years ago, I would have stopped. We would have gotten too close, if I’m being honest. (They’re pretty much just weirdlooking horses, right?) But after working at this magazine for so long, after talking to hundreds of wildlife experts, after learning the good that we can do and the harm that we can cause, I understand that doing the opposite of what you want to do is better for the welfare of all wildlife. Even if in the moment it doesn’t feel good. Even if it forces you to harden your heart a little.
Last fall, I put my horse down. The vet said that he likely wouldn’t make it through another winter. Afterwards, once his body was covered by a tarp, I sat down in his pasture and cried. The other horses approached me, cautious. They stopped. Stared. “Why are you here, human?” “We should never be like, ‘We’re the reason this creature exists,’ ” says Chris Earley. As much as we need animals in our lives—especially at the cottage—maybe the animals don’t need us in theirs.
Senior editor Jackie Davis writes the magazine’s regular Cottage Q&A column.
This story originally appeared in our Sept/Oct ’24 issue.
5 tips for feeding birds
1) Check ingredients: Cheap seed mixes contain filler, such as millet. Most birds don’t want to eat that stuff, so they’ll either ignore it—it’ll sit and get mouldy (see No. 3)— or they’ll knock it to the ground. Second Nature’s Gary Ure uses black oil sunflower seeds. Most species like it, and they’ll choose it over other options. Give the birds what they want! “You’ll get the least amount of waste,” says Ure.
2) Location, location, location: Place your feeders within about a metre of any cottage windows, or more than three metres away from them, to decrease the chances of bird-window collisions. What kind of greenery is around the feeder? “You need a balance,” says Chris Earley. “You want some cover that the bird can fly in to, but not so much cover that a predator can hide in it and ambush the bird.” Keep feeders two or three metres away from any bushes where cats or other ground predators can conceal themselves.
3) Keep ’em fresh: Buy feeders that are easy to clean, and clean them at least once every two weeks, with a 10 per cent bleach solution. Scrub them, rinse them thoroughly, let them dry, and refill them. If you see mould growing against the glass of the feeder, you’re probably not emptying and cleaning it frequently enough.
4) Mind the guest list: Be aware that if you feed the birds, you’re never only feeding the birds. “Once bird seed hits the ground, it becomes food for anything that wants to eat it,” says Ure. And that makes it more likely that whatever else is eating the seed—squirrels, raccoons, skunks, rodents—will move into or under your cottage. “It’s like when we travel, we stop at the hotel for the night. We go, ‘Where can we eat?’ ” says Ure. “And of course, right across the street, there’s a restaurant that we head for.” It’s the same thing, just reversed. Animals, much like people, will go for the easiest, simplest, option. The benefits—to us—of feeding birds can’t be measured, says Earley. But, “if you’re also trying to get rid of a mouse problem…you wouldn’t be helping your cause.”
5) Hold the pity: It’s a misconception that birds rely on us for food during the winter. “People think, Oh, it’s getting cold. The poor birds!” says Earley. “But meanwhile, lots of birds are like, Woohoo, it’s getting cold!” Birds that don’t migrate south have evolved to stay put. “They know what to do.”
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