Gray Jays--to feed or not to feed?

Two days ago I encountered a very bold Gray Jay atop Pierce Mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This was my first ascent of a high peak outside of the Adirondack 46, where Gray Jays are not found on summits but are instead uncommonly found in a few of the park's lowland bogs. The most reliable spot to see Gray Jays in the Adirondacks is at Bloomingdale Bog, where locals have begun feeding the Gray Jays in recent years and now they almost always swoop in looking for a handout. I visited the bog a few weeks ago with a friend who hadn't seen the Gray Jays before, and I have to admit that I shared a little of my flaxseed nutrition bar with one of the jays. As a biologist I know that its bad to feed the wildlife, but its tough to convince yourself not to when a Gray Jay cocks its head at you looking for food. As I fed this one bird I wondered where the others were (I've seen up to 5 at this one location), and then noticed them flying back and forth further up the path. Further investigation revealed that the jays were collecting cat food that had been left on a stump by prior visitors. I question why anyone would think that cat food is a more suitable source of energy for a jay than birdseed, but they jays certainly didn't mind. The jays quickly realized the cat food was tastier and more easily accessible than our granola bars and lost interest in our handouts, so we moved on.

Only a couple of years ago Gray Jays were difficult to spot in Bloomingdale Bog, and seeing one was a rare treat. Even now the jays approach people with caution, but will usually land on a hand if one is stays relatively still. The Gray Jay that I encountered on the top of Pierce Mountain had lost all fear of humans, and landed on one of our packs the moment we set them down. In this instance I was not tempted to feed the ballsy little critter, but rather snapped pictures while another hiker shared a good portion of his nutrition bar. I was able to snap some fantastic photos, and since the jay stuck around for a while I even grabbed a nice shot of it perched in front of nearby Mt. Eisenhower. In fact, this jay stayed around as long as we did, and I wonder how many hikers he steals from a day, especially during peak season.

Gray Jays are infamous across most if their range, which includes most of Canada, Alaska, and boreal regions of the United States. They are known as "robbers" around campgrounds, where they can become as pesky as a flock of gulls at the beach. The Gray Jay, however, I think is more justified than a pesky flock of gulls stealing food beside an ocean teeming with prey, because Gray Jays occupy one of the harshest environments on the planet. The summit of Pierce is only 3 miles away from and 2000 feet below the summit of Mt. Washington, a mountain famous for having some of the coldest temperatures and highest winds in the lower 48. Even in lowland Bloomingdale Bog winters bring a persistent snowpack and temperatures as low as 30 degrees below zero on the coldest nights. Gray Jays and other boreal birds have adapted to these harsh conditions by "cacheing" their food when its most readily available, an action by which they store small amounts of food in hundreds of locations each season in the hopes that they will remember where they hid it and that they will find it before someone else does. This is clearly what the Gray Jay in Bloomingdale Bog was doing when we shared food, as it would fly off each time and wouldn't return for a few minutes--it seemed it was taking the time to find some good hiding spots. Without caches of food Gray Jays would have a difficult time to maintaining their body heat on cold winter days, where snowstorms may prevent them from finding fresh food for days.

So is it wrong to feed the Gray Jays? The arguments against feeding wildlife should probably be applied to Gray Jays even though they live in such harsh conditions. Feeding wildlife can inhibit the ability of wild animals to forage for food on their own, especially in the case of young birds who should be learning to forage from their parents. While Gray Jays are fairly social creatures and may remain in a flock through early winter, by mid-winter a young bird must strike out on their own to establish territory and find a mate in time to breed in early spring. A young bird that has relied only on handouts may not be able to effectively forage for food in a territory without human food as a supplement. Last winter I actually found a dead Gray Jay in Bloomingdale Bog in a different part of the bog from where people regularly feed them, and wondered if dependence on human food played any role in it not surviving the winter. Seems like a good argument against feeding them, but then I thought--what is the difference between hiker's handouts and the birdfeeding station at a house just up the road where Gray Jays also visit? If dependence on human food can negatively affect a population, why are birdfeeders so widely accepted? This past summer I watched as many of the birds around my yard disappeared for about a month, and slowly returned with fledglings in tow to teach the young birds that my birdfeeders were a god source of food. Have my birdfeeders also doomed these birds to have a lower survival rate when they strike out on their own and settle down where there isn't a birdfeeder nearby?

I welcome any comments or suggestions on the topic. In the meantime, with the abundance of people and birdfeeders in the areas Gray Jays have come to occupy in the Adirondacks, I think I'll bring some birdseed with me next time...