Gray Jays...to feed or not to feed?

Are Grey Jays Sentient?

expat said:

... we hope that our sentience makes us benign there.

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Another thread, discussing the pros and cons of whether the poster thought animals in general, and grey jays in particular, were sentient might be an interesting thread. IIRC the 'scientific community' has long held that humans were the only sentient beings, but careful observation of other species challenges that opinion. But, that's getting a bit far afield on a hiking BB.

ok fine!!!

if a grey jay ever steals my lunch, i'm holding all you grey jay feeders responsible!!!!

and i want to be repaid for my lost food in beer

are humans sentient?

Kevin Rooney said:

Another thread, discussing the pros and cons of whether the poster thought animals in general, and grey jays in particular, were sentient might be an interesting thread. IIRC the 'scientific community' has long held that humans were the only sentient beings, but careful observation of other species challenges that opinion. But, that's getting a bit far afield on a hiking BB.

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Another question might be whether we humans are sentient...... if so then how much of the time? I think the idea of humans being sentient is debatable given the evidence of human history...... perhaps we are becoming more sentient as time passes, I can only hope so....... this is of course another debate beyond the pale of a hiking forum, although I would question how much more sentient than a grey jay your habitual couch potatoe/daytime television watcher is... The grey jay is probably way more aware and in tune to their environment, they would have to be in order to survive....

As far as whether grey jays or other bird species are sentient I would say that in my opinion they are, though perhaps not in an individual sense.... I think many species of birds, insects, or fish posess a sort of "hive mind" or maybe a more unified field of consciousness shared among them..... I forget where I read about this theory, although it made a lot of sense to me from my observations of nature.

Good related article written recently by Ed Parsons in the Conway Daily Sun:

http://www.conwaydailysun.com/hiking.lasso

Cheers

I guess I'm late on flogging this "dead horse" more than once, but wanted to add my .02:

Kevin mentioned "buzzing" raids. GrouseKing refered to "dive bombing". That's my issue -- those sweet little birds y'all fed on the Tom-Willey route later mounted an assault on my solo backpack, nearly scaring the beejesus outta me! At the time, I swore that was their plan: Give the hiker a heart attack; score the GORP! The raid started just east of Field, to Willey, back to Field and out to Tom. I think my heart stopped at least a dozen times along that ridge!

Not to say I didn't capture the Kodak moment of the two biggest bullies on Willey (great phot-op). But I didn't feed them. Ut-uh. Not encouraging THAT behavior! And just think -- the the bird that landed on your nut filled hand may have just feasted on feces. Giardia, anyone?

I would have rather thrown half my PBJ to the cute fox that sat for a great picture on Carter Dome. Now there was a Kodak moment. Didn't feed him either, tho.

Neil said:

And even if the Jays around crowded spots like Marcy Dam did get a little paunchy and rear slightly larger broods?

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Are there gray jays around Marcy Dam? I thought you would find them only at high elevations or in lowland boreal habitat. Lots of chickadees at the dam, of course.

deer

A few of these posts mentioned that feeding deer causes them to be habituated handouts from people. That's not really the problem, as I understand it.

The issue is that deer have a complex digestive system in which the bacteria adapts to their diet. In winter, they are eating shoots and buds. When they eat from feeders, not only can they not digest the feed, but it causes their system to start to adapt to the feed. So they starve, not being able to digest the feed or the shoots.

There's a good sound bite about this on NHPR. http://www.nhpr.org/node/10276

Personally, I suspect that feeding the Jays isn't an issue. But I'm not a biologist.

jrichard said:

A few of these posts mentioned that feeding deer causes them to be habituated handouts from people. That's not really the problem, as I understand it.

The issue is that deer have a complex digestive system in which the bacteria adapts to their diet. In winter, they are eating shoots and buds. When they eat from feeders, not only can they not digest the feed, but it causes their system to start to adapt to the feed. So they starve, not being able to digest the feed or the shoots.

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Where I lived in michigan there is a small peninsula into lake Superior, about 1.5 miles around, wooded with nice trails, a one lane road loop around it, a community pool an nature center, as well as several picnic areas. This is close to town and therefore a popular destination. Over the course of many years it became normal to see people out there everyday feeding the deer, including the resident albino. There was an older woman who fed them every morning, as well as others, including college students who'd feed them things like french fries and hamburgers.

This all culminated when the city estimated there were 80 deer inhabiting this small area, and they would not leave. The carrying capacity was something like 15 deer. They had eaten most of the natural food sources and many were becoming sick and wasting away.

It came to the point that the city closed the park for a week and hired hunters to go in and kill most of the deer in an effort to cull to population. You can only imagine how pissed people were to hear that they were going to kill all those "poor deer". Since then the city has been much more strict about feeding the deer down there, although I believe people still do.

Not quite Grey jays, but...

That reminds me, I saw an article on a woman who feeds Bald Eagles every winter. Surely (some would argue), this is ok, as we have contributed to almost wiping them out. Of course, I'm sure others would argue the other way...

deer

sleeping bear said:

...feed them things like french fries and hamburgers.

This all culminated when the city estimated there were 80 deer inhabiting this small area, and they would not leave.

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Fries and hamburgers? The Gray Jays would go nuts for that stuff.

I imagine that a deer's digestive system would get accustomed to that higher calorie food, if fed continuously.

But are you sure that the issue wasn't just that the deer population grew due to the lack of natural predators (or hunting?) IIRC, that was the verdict on Long Island, NH, which had a similar hunt.

In any case, I think we all agree that feeding deer is a bad idea. It is a pain in the neck keeping them out of my bird feeder though.

Feeding bears, directly or through neglect, does not kill the bear, it actually helps them fatten up for winter. Feeding them can lead to their demise because other humans freak out at the sight of the bear (who came back for more) then shoot the bear or call some other humans who shoot the bear so it won't ever again scare the human. The bear was just looking for food in the same place it found food earlier. It's bad to feed bears because it may lead to their death by scared humans who don't belong in bear country.

Gray jays don't scare humans so feeding them doesn't lead to their death, only enhanced nourishment. IMHO, the idea of an animal loosing the ability to find food for any reason indicates a lack of understanding of the nature of animals. If someone fed you an afternoon treat every Saturday and Sunday, would you forget how to feed yourself the rest of the time?

forestnome said:

Feeding bears, directly or through neglect, does not kill the bear, it actually helps them fatten up for winter. Feeding them can lead to their demise because other humans freak out at the sight of the bear (who came back for more) then shoot the bear or call some other humans who shoot the bear so it won't ever again scare the human. The bear was just looking for food in the same place it found food earlier. It's bad to feed bears because it may lead to their death by scared humans who don't belong in bear country.

Gray jays don't scare humans so feeding them doesn't lead to their death, only enhanced nourishment. IMHO, the idea of an animal loosing the ability to find food for any reason indicates a lack of understanding of the nature of animals. If someone fed you an afternoon treat every Saturday and Sunday, would you forget how to feed yourself the rest of the time?

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Freaking out at the sight of a bear is one thing, having your tent ripped into in the middle of the night, bears tearing apart backpacks left unattended for more than a few minutes, and being charged are quite different stories. The latter are what happen when bears become really bold and aggressive in their search for continued handouts. While actual attacks (black bear) are almost non-existant, they will charge (usually a bluff) which is enough to scare the crap out of anyone. When this happens campgrounds can be closed or restricted and the local wildlife management is forced to spend taxpayer money to remedy the problem. Often when the problem goes that far the bear will need to be destroyed. Just look at the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, they've got serious bear issues (squirrel, chipmunk and bird too!)

While the situation would obviously never be that bad with birds, someone in an earlier post did mention some bold unwanted attention. I have heard that the chemical make-up of many of the starches that we eat can be very harmful to birds. Think of all of the other junk that is in our food, it can't be good.

sleeping bear said:

While actual attacks (black bear) are almost non-existant, they will charge (usually a bluff) which is enough to scare the crap out of anyone. When this happens campgrounds can be closed or restricted and the local wildlife management is forced to spend taxpayer money to remedy the problem. Often when the problem goes that far the bear will need to be destroyed.

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I disagree that the bear needs to be killed. People go into bear country, the only places left for them to live, then get scared when their stuff gets trashed or they are bluff charged by a bear. The bear does not to be killed, rather the scared humans need to be coddled and to have their treking environment sterilized of a perceived danger. I have been bluff charged twice, complete with huffs and pops. Once by a large bruin with a bag of trash and once by a sow with three cubs. I simply obeyed the request and moved away. I saw no need to call authorities to have them killed or removed from their own environment.

IMO, the are two problems. The first is feeding the bear. The second is going into bear country if you're afraid of bears.

So here's a question. It looks like this isn't all about gray jays anymore, so I'll ask about the bear. Do you think there are actual circumstances where the bear either needs to be killed, or tranquilized and sent elsewhere? What about the infamous Brutus years back in the Pemi? If you have many bears like that, wouldn't you think you'd need to control that problem? I really don't know what's best for bears, but I would think that if one does get used to handouts, that can't be good. Let's say if the bear is a female. Is there some way it could teach to trust humans to its cubs? Too many questions, getting way off topic. I just think these are several things to think about.


In the end though, I think that we should be extra careful in bear country. Its called bear country for a reason, they lived there...and have lived there most likely before us. So coexsisting is important. And I do agree it doesn't mean killing bears, it means making sure you don't get to the point where bears are more used to human handouts. I've come across bears intimately once, in Campton almost 10 years ago at a campground. I looked into the woods and there they were....mom and two-three cubs....not 50 feet away. Most likely they were looking for food. Then they were spotted across camp as a festival was going on, so food was very present. It's tough to coexsist with that, but somehow we have to.

A very confused
grouseking

forestnome said:

IMO, the are two problems. The first is feeding the bear. The second is going into bear country if you're afraid of bears.

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I can agree with that.

I don't mean to come accross as being an advocate of having the bears destroyed, as I am certainly not. There are two specific instances I'm reffering to in which only one, as far as I know, went so far as to have a bear destroyed. However, both instances involved relocation. One of those situations was on an island which is a USFS national recreation area. Of course the bears have no idea what that means, but people should know it means we need to coexist, as FN mentioned. Even if you are afraid of bears, that shouldn't matter too much because ideally they're just as scared of us, hence "wild".

While I have strayed away from the topic at hand, feeding grey jays, it's larger than that, it's about feeding any wild animal. Our problems with bears can be solved by not feeding them, intentionally or unintentionally. I think this starts right at the beginning of it all, by not feeding smaller, less dangerous animals (birds, chipmunks, foxes, etc.). Otherwise where do you draw the line? If it's okay to feed a bird and get a nice photo of it sitting on your hand, isn't it a double standard to say that it isn't okay to do the same with a bear?

Bears that attack humans are bad for business.

In consideration of this discussion whether it's right or wrong, when it's between bears' and peoples' safety, well-being, rights, whatever, people (and money) will always come first.

In Lake Luoise Alberta there is a large public campground (car-camping) and one night a grizzly beat attacked a guy while he was sleeping peacefully in his tent. The person lived but needed 150 stitches on his face alone. The newspapers loved it. What do you think happened to the local economy when people changed their vacation plans? What do think happened to the bear who was a "known offender".

The public couldn't give a hoot about the bears.

That campground now has a big fence all around it.

Grouseking, thanks for letting your thread wander to animals in general because it really is a hiking/camping issue when humans venture into the forest.

I agree with sleepingbear that no animals really benefit from being fed by humans, but there is a difference between jays and bears. Feeding jays a couple treats is harmless. Admittedly I feed them for my own pleasure and not their well being, but I firmly believe no harm is done and they really love it! We all know that the bears are a different story. If bears weighed 25 lbs. instead of 250 lbs., no harm would come to them.

Five years ago, in North Conway, I heard a gunshot. I went to see what happened. A mama bear was lying dead on the ground, and her two cubs were just above her body on a branch, looking down and very upset. A small crowd formed a circle around the scene. Someone put fish on the dumpster, which had "don't feed the bears" signs all over it. She wanted to take a picture of the bear with her kids. Other residents of the area called the police because they were scared. Instead of telling the crowd to leave the area and calling F@G, the cop mased the bear. The mased bear was scared and confused and approached the cop, who then shot her dead. The cubs stayed there for hours, and watched as the police put their mama's body in the animal control van and drove away. After dark the cubs came down, sniffed around and then ran into the woods alone.

There are no problem bears, just idiot humans who don't belong in bear country. Anyone who is afraid of a bear looking for food should stay home in the city.

Hey Forestnome that's a real horror story. It amazes me how many people just don't get it.

sleeping bear said:

Otherwise where do you draw the line? If it's okay to feed a bird and get a nice photo of it sitting on your hand, isn't it a double standard to say that it isn't okay to do the same with a bear?

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This can get quite deep into personal philosophy, and many will have a different answer.

Some will say that we should have an easily understood, unambiguous rule such as "don't feed the wildlife". Others will claim that it is a matter of perspective, or is relative. For instance, one might say that it should be obvious that feeding a bear is dangerous while a bird is not. Of course, it may not be obvious to those without experience in the area.

In any case, a hunter would have a quite different perspective on this. Bear baiting is legal in NH (http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Hunting/bear_baiting.htm) except in some areas such as Nash Stream Forest. I'm not all that thrilled about this since I assume the scent of the donut maker or hunter will stay around. If the bear isn't taken, it might associate humans with food. (Note that I'm not trying to take an anti-hunting position here, some good friends of mine are hunters.)

Uh, oh......don't get me stahted!! I've been so good lately...

...Jade