Photo by Burkhard Kaufhold on Unsplash
Rebecca Heismann reported on PhD student, Daniel Forrest’s, summer 2023 surveys exploring the relationship about Vancouver’s garbage and bird feeding, generalists species like the American crow, and the diversity of bird species for the Revelator. This research is still ongoing, but the data indicate that crows feed heavily on food waste, and feed most frequently on paved and grassy surfaces. Future analyses will explore the relationship among crows, other bird species, and the microhabitat that support these species, to understand if food waste may be indirectly simplifying the urban bird community and what we can do about it.
See this video, produced by UBC Studios together with the Killam Laureates Foundation, to hear more about this research.