Wildwalks - Avoid the Wildlife

Avoid the Wildlife

Please help keep the wildlife wild, by just letting them be. Never feed animals or leave food or rubbish around that they may try to eat. Do not approach animals. If animals become comfortable with humans they will often become dependant, sick and by put at risk from attack from predators.

Behaviour

Never feed animals
Ensure you never leave rubbish around
Pack food and waste away so that animals can't smell them or get to them
Never approach animals
Scatter washing water etc away from camp so animals no not approach camp

Pre-trip Planning

Pre planning is the key to many of the minimal impact techniques. Please consider the following points when planning, packing for and speaking to people about your trip.

Ensure all group members understand and are committed to these behaviours
Pack sealable containers for food and waste
Research any dangerous animals in the area (eg dingos or bears)

The Rational

Never Feed animals

Feeding wild native animals causes all kinds of problems, even just doing it once will cause some of the following problems.

Nutrition: A hand feed can contain a large amount of food but few of the minerals and nutrients that the animal needs. This can result in illness and lack of energy to find their next meal.
Comfort with Humans: as humans have interactions with animals the animals will become more comfortable approaching humans and will come into campsite and steal food, chew through bags and tents. They may also become aggressive towards humans when trying to get easy food
Disease: food contains many pathogens that our bodies can deal with, that may cause disease in animals. Animals may also develop serious gum infections, and other disease from just a change to softer foods
Open to predation: As animals become lazy and get a taste for human food they may put themselves in open spaces such as campsite to gather food scraps and be killed by predators. Animals may also become fat and slow making it more difficult to escape predation.

Pack food in sealable container

In bear country (not a big issue in Australia) it is compulsory to use bear barrels. They are containers that bears cannot open and are used to store food and waste. In Australia we do not run into the same kind of dangers to people that bears present but the risk to the animals is just as great. Such container and storage of food will help reduce the population of rats and mice around campsites and minimise the risk of a possum clawing it way through your tent. Where dingos are present make sure food and rubbish is locked away for similar reasons to the bears. This may also include anything that could be confused as food such as hiking boots (the salt is temping for some), scented stuff like toothpaste or deodorant.