Randi Minetor

on all of these animals that farmers and other hunters could kill as many as they wanted, and they would actually make money doing this, that the city or county would pay them for having done this.

So that wiped out many animals.

Mountain lions in particular have really struggled

since those days, and they're gone.

They're completely extirpated from the eastern United States.

But coyotes somehow thrived in this environment, even though they were killing them like mad.

They somehow managed to just keep expanding their territory, so they're now in all 48 states, which is pretty amazing when you think about how resilient this particular species is.

It's a terrible idea.

You know, you absolutely should not be doing that.

Once you start feeding the animals deliberately, and then now I'm going to leave birds out of this.

Bird food and bird feeders do not make birds dependent on humans.

They're just part of the

the routine part of where they stop off to get a little food before they go on to their next feeding place.

And they continue to do that all day.

But other animals, particularly bears, raccoons, once that animal becomes hungry,

what we call habituated to humans feeding it, it will become more and more aggressive about getting that food.

That's when the bears start to break into your garage or come into your house because somebody has been feeding them and they know that we are food sources.

That's not a good situation.

And in that kind of situation, very often the bear in particular has to be taken out and destroyed.

And that's a terrible shame.