I started working at a wild animal rehab this year. I’ve fed a few hundred squirrels, dozens of song birds, some really cool raptors, and a good handful of mammals.

I consider my time with them positive, but they really don’t want much to do with us. I just released an owl this weekend and it bit me multiple times as I was trying to let it go. That’s the attitude it takes for it to survive, so getting a positive attitude back is typically not an outcome I should, or realistically want to see.

The person being hostile in this thread is going pretty extreme. We shouldn’t be touching or feeding animals directly, but many do need indirect human presence to survive. They evolved with us to an extent, and they take advantage of our food storage and waste and some of the molding of the environment that we do by creating fields and farmland.

Most animal injuries I see are from cars, pets, manmade structures, and cutting down trees animals live in. What people are feeding the birds is likely a very small portion of their diet, as they eat pretty constantly. Keep your bird and squirrel stations clean and provide shelter from predators and you likely aren’t hurting anything in the grand scheme of things. A loose dog or cat is way worse IMO.