DO NOT FEED THE ALLIGATORS!!!

Throughout the Stephen C Foster campground in the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, there are signs warning against the feeding of wildlife. These warnings are no joke. The dangers of tossing food to wildlife should now be common sense (hopefully). Feeding of wildlife such as bears and alligators causes them to associate humans with food, and that can lead to future adversarial contacts. Typically, it is the animal that eventually loses out. They have to be drugged and relocated, or even killed.
Wildlife Feeding Strictly Prohibited sign
© Photographer: William Wise | Agency: Dreamstime.com
The Savannah River Ecology Lab writes, “Don't feed alligators. This is a most important rule as feeding alligators threatens the safety of both people and animals. Providing food for these wild animals (that are naturally afraid of humans) not only makes them bolder and encourages them to seek out people, it also alters their natural diet in an unhealthy way. Feeding alligators trains them to associate humans with foods. Feeding alligators is punishable by law with fines jail time.”

For all of those reasons, I take seriously the admonition to not feed the Okefenokee wildlife… except for a couple of species. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to not feed the mosquitoes and flies! No amount of repellent seems to keep these little bloodsucking critters from feeding on your flesh if you visit the Okefenokee in late spring and summer.


Do you love the Okefenokee? Join the iNat Okefenokee Photography Project and follow the Okefenokee Photography Wordpress blog at https://okefenokee.photography/. If you have an Okefenokee blog post or journal, message me the URL through my iNat profile page and I’ll post it in this project. Thanks for contributing and for be a lover of this great piece of earth, the Okefenokee Swamp! William

Publicado el julio 15, 2020 10:19 MAÑANA por williamwisephoto williamwisephoto

Comentarios

Agreed -- feeding the wildlife is bad for wildlife! I'm always amazed at how we as humans just want to toss food to animals... I guess it's because we're always hungry, we just assume that the rest of nature is... Here in Texas, some folks in Dallas/Fort Worth were feeding coyotes, and the coyotes attacked some joggers (we think they were just looking at the people as "food dispensers"). Bad situation all around:
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a26144944/runner-attacked-by-coyote-frisco/

Mosquitoes are indeed always hungry though. :)

Publicado por sambiology hace más de 3 años

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