Royal Parks urge visitors to ‘help nature thrive’ by not feeding the wildlife
By Tallulah Taylor and Xindi Wei
The Royal Parks charity is urging visitors to ‘help nature thrive’ in some of the capital’s largest and busiest green spaces.
This will include asking visitors to Greenwich Park and others in west London not to feed wildlife in the parks, by drawing attention to the harmful effect it can have on animals and their habitats.
As part of the campaign, visitors to Richmond and Bushy Parks, will also be reminded to keep a minimum of 50m from the herds of free-roaming wild deer, and to protect their natural way of life by not feeding or touching these wild and unpredictable animals.
The Royal Parks are some of the most popular and iconic parks in the country.
Hyde Park, for example, attracts almost 13 million visits a year.
Its popularity results in high volumes of wildlife feeding, which is upsetting the park’s delicate ecosystem.
The charity has released a video showing the scale of the feeding that takes place at the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park.
The video, filmed in May 2021, shows birds being fed 15 times in a two-hour period by a small stretch of the lake.
Tom Jarvis, Director of Parks at The Royal Parks said: “We understand that visitors want to get close to nature, particularly in a busy city like London, and the desire to feed wildlife comes from a good place, but leaving wildlife alone is often the kindest thing to do.
“There is an abundance of natural food in the parks for all wildlife to feed on, including insects and wildflower seeds.”
Excessive feeding in the parks encourages large groups of birds such as gulls and crows.
They bully other birds, stealing their eggs and killing their chicks.
Leftover food can attract rats, and water quality can be impacted through uneaten soggy bread and waterfowl faeces.
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So I went to Greenwich park yesterday been going since I was a child my self and always took my children. Im struggling to understand how stopping people do what we have done for generations is helping the wildlife strive. It was so sad at the pond in Greenwich park never ever have I seen it like that before about 5 ducks all looked like they seen better days. That pond used to be thriving with wildlife I see one duckling and that’s unusual to see so where’s the rest gone. The wildlife is definitely Dying since putting these measures in place. And it’s sad that people will read a poster and believe it but ignore what they see with there own eyes. A man turned up a sweet old guy with two bags of food the birds knew him straight away not just birds the bloody fish too never seen anything like it when he threw bread in the pond the ducks went crazy and the fish (a lot of fish) was jumping out that pond to get the bread. He offered bread to a mum and little girl and she refused it because of a sign. What a crazy world we live in. And need to see how this is helping our wildlife thrive. Because what I see is is devastating.