March 26,
2019, Virginia
Tech
People in
many parts of the world feed birds in their backyards, often due to a desire to
help wildlife or to connect with nature. In the United States alone, over 57
million households in the feed backyard birds, spending more than $4 billion
annually on bird food.
While
researchers know that bird feeding can influence nature, they do not know how
it influences the people who feed those birds.
"Given
that so many people are so invested in attracting birds to their backyard, we
were interested in what natural changes they observe at their feeders beyond
simply more birds," said Ashley Dayer, an assistant professor in the
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation in the College of Natural
Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech. "In particular, we wanted to
know how they respond to their observations. For example, how do they feel if
they see sick birds at their feeders, and what actions do they take to address
these observations?"
Researchers
Ashley Dayer and Dana Hawley of Virginia Tech recently published their findings
in People and Nature, a new journal published by the British Ecological
Society.
The study
was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia.
No comments:
Post a Comment