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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Victoria BC recently imposed social distancing rules on wild birds. People are being told to pull down feeders, to ignore those birds now begging for food at the window. Good luck enforcing that rule.

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Hi fellow Victorian :)

To my knowledge, this isn't a "rule" that's "imposed" or "enforced" by the city - the SPCA (which is not a government agency, just a non-profit) has just asked people to do it voluntarily.

Another Vancouver Islander here, exactly as you say, there has been no "rules" implemented by anyone in any government position. This is the BC SPCA, a non-profit, asking people with bird feeders to take them down: https://spca.bc.ca/news/bird-salmonella-outbreak/

Not actually there myself but was speaking to family there about the issue. While it may not be a law enforced by cops, Canadians are generally pretty good about following announcements by groups like the SPCA.

It's actually controversial rule for bird feeders. It's not conclusive that the bird feeders do more harm than help. Some research indicates birds living near bird feeders have better immune system and can cope with diseases better.

I'm not sure it would even reduce their social distancing. Maybe being more hungry increases their flocking behaviors.

Yes, but they can still spread it to birds that don’t have that benefit. So does that make them a more viable disease vector than if they just dropped dead?

> People are being told to pull down feeders, to ignore those birds now begging for food at the window. Good luck enforcing that rule.

"Bird-feeder? No no, that's my squirrel feeder."

An upside-down funnel on the pole (into the ground) solves the squirrel feeder issue :)

Perhaps, but only if you define the "issue" as squirrels getting bored because the feeder is too easy to get into.

My favorite in this vein was a metal sleeve on the pole holding the bird feeder that was held up by a weight inside the pole. Squirrel climbs up sleeve, which then falls down due to the squirrel's added weight. Disappointed squirrel deposited back on the ground. It worked until one of the squirrels chewed a hole in the pole and ate through the cord holding the weight. This really happened on a bird feeder belonging to a friend's parents. (Related question: how on earth did the squirrel figure that out?)

I had a squirrel unscrew a bird feeder and dump its contents out.

Squirrels are smart. :-D

Squirrel maze 1.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg

Squirrel maze 2.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTvS9lvRxZ8

Oh, and be cautious with those squirrels....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpZZQ2ov4lc&t=30s

It might slow them down a few minutes but they will figure it out. There is no such thing as a squirrel-proof bird feeder.

My bird feeder does pretty well. https://morebirds.com/collections/caged-squirrel-proof-bird-...

Outside my office last winter: https://imgur.com/gallery/LTVz9t0

Not a stable one, anyway. A normal feeder, hung from a drone flying 50' over a field, is squirrel-proof until the battery runs out.

Fifty feet in the air, swinging below a drones ... such a feeder would also be bird-proof.

broke: pffft, a trifling concern

woke: three drones, to stabilize the swinging, and hanging far enough that the noise wouldn't be a bother.

bespoke: a 50' pole interrupted by a 500rpm lawnmower blade at about 15' up, and topped with a bird feeder. The only reason people think squirrel-proof bird feeders are impossible is because they don't want to harm the squirrels. (and, for the record, neither do I)

Except when the squirrels can leap and land on the feeder itself. There are few good squirrel solutions

That sounds like an article that should be in the Onion. Life imitating art.

I've got to squint pretty hard to see this. Seems pretty mundane and non-satirical to me. Birds have viruses and bird sociality contributes to them. Just stands to reason that controlling contributing factors like bird feeders would be among the mitigation strategies.

I would just assume any source of food (say, an oak tree) would concentrate birds and not feeding them in one place just means they’ll go somewhere else.

Trying to social distance wild animals seems to be the action of a bird brained bureaucrat feeling like they needed to do something with no evidence at all of it being effective.

It seems like a manifestation of the old adage that when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

The densities are completely different and result in different patterns of use. Bird feeders distribute large amounts of food from a small space. Large flocks of different types of birds gather at feeders and may fight for access. There is a big difference between a feeder having plenty of seed and a tree having maybe some bugs and seeds on its many branches.

I had no idea about this.

https://www.cheknews.ca/public-asked-to-remove-bird-feeders-...

My yard is crawling (hopping?) with birds all day, every day. I don't even have feeders, though. Victoria is bird country.

P.E.I the same rules

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