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Bird Feeders Might Be Changing Bird Beaks (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Bird beaks might be evolving to better fit bird feeders. A study of great tits in the UK, where feeders are common, found the bird's beaks have grown over the last 26 years, that British birds had longer beaks than those in the Netherlands, and that birds with genes for longer beaks were more likely to visit feeders, per Science News. Scientists have known that environmental changes, like El Nino, can influence the evolution of animals. Now, it appears something as simple as bird feeders can do the same. The scientists looked at the beaks of 2,322 great tits from the UK and the Netherlands, and also examined their genes. They tagged birds with gene variants for short and long beaks and tracked their feeding habits. What they found: The British birds had longer beaks and were more likely to have genes associated with beak length.
This is a moral dilemma, and there are strong arguments both ways, but I lean towards feeding them for a number of reasons for this. Firstly, human activity is having a very negative impact on bird populations, and populations are declining rapidly. It seems morally correct to compensate for the damage by help the animals, and feeding them to maintain their population is one way of doing that.
Feeding does seem to have a beneficial effect. For example if we look at tits, a family of birds that are very adept at eating from feeders, we see their population is stable. While if we look at sparrows, which will absolutely never eat from feeders and will only ever feed from the ground, we see their population is in decline, and numbers are headed towards dangerously low levels. As human populations continue to expand, it appears as though feeding of birds is the only thing that's going to save them.
The second reason I lean towards feeding is that during the winter 50% of small birds die due to a combination of starving and freezing to death, which is an extremely unpleasant way to go. If I were starving and freezing, I know I would like somebody to give me food, and I'm certain the birds would have the same attitude. Feeding birds avoids a lot of suffering. Yes, it does interfere with nature, but humans are already interfering on a massive scale. We may as well engage in some positive interference to counter our huge negative impact.