Feeding Wild Game

There are several reasons, good ones, why fish and game officials discourage the feeding of wild game. First, when wild animals/birds, etc. are fed by humans, they become dependent on that food, and stop hunting for their own. During Summer months here in Bayview, boat owners, float home dwellers and such hand feed the ducks that populate the lake shore here in Bayview.

Then, most go home to their Winter homes, leaving these dependent ducks to fend for themselves when they haven't had to before. One such case, is an S-curve located on Fifth Street here in Bayview. A kindly, undoubtedly helpful person living on that curve, started feeding the ducks in their yard. I have driven through that area several times recently, having to stop until the ducks have finished crossing the road. One was predictably hit and killed. The person feeding the ducks, outraged at the motorist, set up a box painted red in the middle of the road, with the dead duck on top of it.

Instead of blaming a motorist rounding a blind curve, this person should look within, for it was he/she that produced a feeding station for 70 or 80 ducks. The dead duck, (no pun intended) was not only predictable, but inevitable. Good deeds never go unpunished ...