Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!mit-amt!geek
From: geek@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Chris Schmandt)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: bird begging
Message-ID: <502@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 16 Aug 89 22:58:59 GMT
References: <4529@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <5280001@hpavla.HP.COM>
Reply-To: geek@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Chris Schmandt)
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
Lines: 28

In article <5280001@hpavla.HP.COM> przybyls@hpavla.HP.COM (Tom Przybylski) writes:
>
>     Bird begging is not just an "urban" phenomina, unless you consider
>anywhere a lot of humans go to be urban.  I have seen the same thing at
>the Long's Peak campground at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
>The animals (birds, chipmunks, squirrels) beg to some extent all year
>long.  During the summer, they get fed a lot, from people directly and
>from grubbing in the garbage.  The real problem comes just after all the
>crowds leave at the end of summer.
>

On the road up over the crest of the park (Rocky Mtn.) there is
a turnout where Clark's Nutcrackers beg peanuts (and whatever)
from travelling tourists.  Of course, the Nutcrackers are pretty
birds with their flashing white, and very bold and noisy as well,
so it makes a great show.  Personally I disapprove of feeding
wildlife, although I do feed birds in the winter.  I guess my
attitude is that anything that lives in our cities is barely
"wild"-life anymore...

Last week while hiking in the high country at Zion a deer was
so used to handouts that it came close enough to lick our hands.
Of course this thrilled my 3 year old daughter!  This was not
on a road, but rather 4.5 miles in on a trail at a spring.
I was told that this deer had been mooching at that location for
quite a number of years.

chris