Pretty sure I have:. I HAVE fed a few yard animals close up. When I was about 12, a squirrel climbed up into my hand and sat there eating nuts. I have a picture of it. A few years ago, there were a lot of bunnies in the neighborhood, a few of them were "living" in my back yard and I would sit on the back porch and toss bread to them a foot or two away. About 10 years ago, a number of pairs of mourning doves kept building a nest in my bedroom window! They'd lay a few eggs and usually stick around to hatch them and teach them to fly. A few weeks/months later, another set would come and re-build the nest (I always left it there for them to re-use) and would go through the whole process again. There must've been well over a dozen sets of eggs in that nest over the years! The thing is, this was an old-fashioned window that opened like a door! AND, it was RIGHT at the very top of the steps into my room so, if I left the window open, which I usually did in the summer, I'd have to walk RIGHT PAST the nest to get in or out of my room! As usual, at first, they were scared of me and would fly away to the roof next door for a few minutes. Once they learned that I wasn't gonna hurt them, they stopped being scared of me, at least not if I walked by with my back to them. At one point, I tried to leave some food for them but they never touched it. I suppose they thought it was poisoned. Then, I figured that it wasn't a good idea for me to leave it there because other birds might come take it and screw with their eggs. One of the last times eggs were laid, for some reason, they flew away for a bit without watching the eggs and some other bird stole them. I'm told that wrens will steal the eggs of other birds and raise them as their own. Then, some other bird that I never saw came and made a kind of skyscraper out of the nest, building it with mud and giving it 3" high walls, and then never bothered to use it! I never got another bird after that. Where I am now. there's lots of bunnies up here and I toss them some bread and stuff, too but, except for the one time last year when one came right up on the porch and stood right beside my left foot for a moment, none of them want to get too close. Same for the deer roaming around up here. If I have something to feed them, I'll toss it down to them in the back yard but, they tend to run off before I even start tossing, half the time. Sometimes, they'll kinda wander away for a moment until they see that I'm tossing them food and not trying to hit them and then they come back and eat it.
A friend of mine had trained a wild blue jay to come when he rattled a can of peanuts (in the shells). Then when he held one of the peanuts in his hand, the jay would fly down, perch on his arm, take the peanut, and fly away. It would do that repeatedly. I went out with him into his back yard a few times and got the jay to the same with me.
There used to be a place called The Japanese Deer Park. You could buy dried corn from vending machines and go into a big corral full of tame (not domesticated) deer and feed them out of your hand. I went there several times.
There used to be places that had large tanks with sea lions as attractions. You would hold up the sardine and a sea lion would jump out of the water to grab it from your hand.
A few years ago, my wife and I went to a place called Safari West in northern California. I got to feed a giraffe by holding up a small leafy branch. It leaned down and took the branch from me.
One time, some friends and I were backpacking in Yosemite. At night, we strung ropes over tall tree branches and suspended our backpacks high up so bears couldn't reach them. I went to sleep with my backpack hanging almost over my tent. In the morning, my back pack was on the ground nearby all torn up, and all my food was gone. A bear had somehow gotten it down from that tree limb and devoured my food a feet from where I was sleeping. Does that count as feeding a wild animal up close? LOL
Yeah, we had a wild squirrel socializing with us from a young age. Pretty well-trained for staying wild. Would climb our stucco wall and wait in the same spot for a morning nut or two. Liked to take my cats collar off while he slept at the bottom of the tree. I’d hear the bell ringing in a hopping rhythm and knew I had to chase after it again. My cat was happy for a few min relief. “Take it, please!”
At the last count I do believe we now have ten bird feeders (some with seed and others with fatballs or peanuts) scattered throughout our garden and into our small orchard... I often think it costs nearly as much to feed them as ourselves! lol.
We quite often come across hedgehogs and we're pretty convinced we've had foxes visit our couple of acres of wildlife garden as well.
That’s awesome! The birds are great for “some” orchards lol just not for cherries 🍒 😂. I plant plenty of extra to account for wildlife but the squirrels 🐿 can push my limits. We have lots of bird feeders and many flowering plants for the hummingbirds and butterflies and bees. I just wish the squirrels could be less destructive when they eat. Of course the foxes I discourage since they make off with the young goats and the chickens and so forth. Hedgehogs are fun though, I’ve fed them before
Yes, I do a lot and I actually owned all sorts of wild animals as pets as a teenager that I caught from the wild (not bought) like a pet bat, reticulating python, blue tarantula, etc.
I don't have the sense of danger that some people have around wild animals. For example, I have two separate sets of tooth scars on my face from being bitten by wild dogs as a boy. The first I was hospitalized for it, I just figured I need to change my strategy and got bitten a second time and I still want to hug and pet wild dogs.
I also fed Orangutans bananas and I want to make friends with bears and a silverback gorilla. I might get killed but I don't have this sense that some people have. I think it is a good death if I try to be friends with a wild animal and fail. I die trying to be nice and that's a good way to die as I see it.
Of course, if I see wild boar charging at me from the mountains I run in the opposite direction and climb up a tree. I have some sense! But if I see wild boar who is standing still then I don't run in opposite direction and might try to move closer.
I also have a knack for taming some animals. I don't know if I can tame a wild bear or boar but I was able to tame a feral cat to the point where she slept on my lap like so to the shock of my neighbors and wife who took pictures, although my arms were covered in scratches from the attempts: Now she's my pet.
I kind of think like an animal a bit in some cases like if I see a snake hissing at me, I think like a snake and that helps to tame it. It might bite me and I might have to go to the hospital but I understand why it bit me and I adjust my strategy the next time and think even more like snake when I see next hissing snake.
Once by accident when I was 14. I did not know what a coyote looked like so I assumed it was a stray dog. Before anyone asks how I could make that mistake, just know coyotes typically go out of their way to avoid humans and I never had any reason to look one up. Its ribs were showing so I felt bad for it. I fed it for 4 days and even stroked its back once while it ate food. It was super friendly. The only reason I ever found out it was a coyote was because my neighbor saw what I was doing and got me to back off. Animal control was obviously called. The coyote was put down, both because it was malnourished and because the fact it was so comfortable with humans was a huge red flag.
Outside of that encounter and occasionally feeding birds I leave wild animals alone.
I fed a raccoon like this when I was a kid and the animal scratched the crap out of me I was bleeding. Anyway I took these pictures at a campground this February
I haven't in a long time, being much better educated about the negative consequences, but I certainly did as a boy/teen. We would feed apple slices or carrots to deer and a couple of times an egg to a racoon, and a have a pic of when I was about 9 or 10 with a chipmunk in my hand eating sunflower seeds.
Again, in the late 70s/early 80s, it wasn't nearly as widely understood that this was bad for wild animals. I wouldn't do this today or recommend that anyone does, but things were different 40 years ago.
Does swimming in chum out a few miles in the Pacific Ocean with a handful of blue sharks roughly 6 foot or so that were brave enough to come within a few feet before turning away. I took a picture under water a couple feet down of a blue shark coming straight at me face to face in the picture it looks maybe 3 feet away but it was probably 6 to 10 feet away and you could see the chum in the water in the picture pretty cool experience
I almost thought that was a wild boar that would have been awesome. That is awesome no matter what I love animals they're all here to teach you something that's a good picture is that your grandmother
Wow.. I'd certainly never consider feeding a wild boar! Those are the most dangerous animals in this area/north Germany.. I only remember feeding birds by our local lake when I was a kid, and they sure get very close. Once a swan bid me because another kid was patting it xD
No cuz it creates dependency and disrupts the food chain and can bring around bugs and rodents. Only reason I'd do that is to bait and then pop a deer or rabbit in the vitals and make some polenta so after I slow cook them and the meat comes off the bones I can make a fine gravey
Yes! Moose and deers out in the swedish forests, rabbits (my two pets) 😁, and i think i fed an owl when i was under 10 years but the image is pretty blurry do i don't know if it really happened or if it is just a dream.
@spartan55 Indeed. Moose (Elk) is the national animal of Sweden so we have these everywhere and specially where there is forests. That time when i booked the cabin, they recommended us to take it from February till may because that's when it's the best to encounter the majestic Eurasian elk here and they would be calm too. But wild hogs are nothing to miss with here, no matter what season it is 😂
Only one I've heard of in the last year or so. Elderly lady in a rural area got attacked as she was getting out of her car. Terrible, what a way to go.
No. Don't feed wild animals. It fucks with their healthy fear of humans and you might end up feeding them something harmful inadvertently.
Also, it encourages them to think humans mean food and leads to problems coexisting without problems later down the road.
I live somewhere with a lot of wildlife and it's a big no-no to feed wild animals. Plus, you never know if/when they'll freak out and you'll end up viral for being gored by an elk.
At my last job I would at the end of the day I'd collect the garbage from the kitchen and separate anything edible (people waste so much) mainly for the racoons living in the nearby woods. Also made some squirrels happy. And a few crows, one whose snack I accidentally interrupted and watched it fly off with a sweet potato french fry in its beak.
Some yes, we have some wild deer around these parts, and on the whole they keep their distance. But every now and then one will get all ballsy and cone right up to us for food.
This is more on the animal cruelty side, but when I went to the zoo in Bangkok people were feeding loaves of bread to the hippos. Also, the crocs were laying on the bank of their pond with their mouths open, which they do to vent heat, and people had thrown coins in their mouths.
I fed food to monkeys at a Chinese zoo and I fed pellets to barn animals at a Chinese park and I find fish pellets to gold fish at a Chinese tourist house, but none of them were hand to mouth contact, I think I had gloves on.
No. When I was a kid we had an old raccoon missing an eye that came to the back door looking for food. I threw some scraps out for him but never hand fed him.
… you couldn’t have found a better picture? That old ladies close to death… that’s a wild pig. Their mean as fuck! They bite, spread diseases, destroy farmland… nvm killing pets and young children…
I planted alfalfa for deer to eat in my yard only problem is horses and cows love it too and I have to let my neighbors know when their cows and horses get out
I regularly feed my chickens loads of outdated bread leftover from food donation places. It just shouldn’t be the only thing they eat. They also get a balanced feed
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