Human-made Hazards to Wildlife

Whenever we offer manmade structures to wildlife for feeding and nesting we are risking concentrating animals and with them, the potential spread of disease or threat from opportunist predators. Here are some examples.

Some traps are intentional, to rid your space of pests that belong outdoors and some are wholly unintentional manmade objects left where wildlife encounter and cannot escape them. With awareness

Setting out poison (called rodenticides for pests, e.g. to control rats feeding on grain or grass seed in your back shed, will probably kill the rats but will also kill other

Power equipment such as lawnmowers, tillers, and string trimmers are a danger to snakes, turtles, baby rabbits, ground-nesting birds, toads/frogs, lizards and salamanders.

If you have ever participated in NestWatch or Project FeederWatch, your data may have informed the study summarized in How Noise Pollution Can Negatively Impact Bird Populations which finds that birds are

Artificial light disrupts natural behavior for migrating birds and for flying insects.. Some species of migrating birds are drawn to lighted buildings and structures and can become confused,

Second only to habitat loss, predation by domestic cats is the most important direct, human-caused threat to birds in the United States and Canada.

Window Collisions kill up to 1 billion birds each year following window collisions. Glass is invisible to birds. They perceive glass reflections of vegetation, landscapes, or sky to be real and they attempt to reach