During a recent Maple Sugaring program, someone asked the question, "Do bears ever try to get the sap from your buckets. If so, what do you do?"

The answer to this question is, yes, bears sometimes do get a hankering for sweet tree sap. When that happens, the bears always get first dibs. I'm certainly not going to challenge a hungry bear in the middle of a meal! For many animals, late winter and early spring is the toughest time of the year to find food sources. I'm not about to begrudge them a tasty treat. But this question of sharing the sap got me thinking about other issues of aiding wild animals.

As humans, I believe it's important that we have compassion for our fellow living beings. There is much we can do to help aid their survival. But it's also possible to be too compassionate. Our good intentions can sometimes lead to disastrous consequences for wildlife.

In regards to feeding wild animals, it's great to share with our fellow critters. The best way to do this is to provide more plants that serve as their natural food sources. Consider providing a variety of native wildflowers for pollinating insects and hummingbirds. Native fruit bearing plants will please many animals, as will nut bearing trees.

Providing our feathered friends with bird seed can also be helpful during the winter months. It's important to continue to feed the birds the entire winter. Once you start, and attract a following, the birds will become somewhat dependent upon you. I recommend not feeding the birds during the warmer months to lessen the chance of dependency. Be careful what you are feeding. While quality bird seed and suet are good choices, bread is not.

With the arrival of spring comes the birth of many baby animals. Here too, we must be careful to avoid misguided compassion. If you find a healthy baby bird on the ground, look around carefully for the bird's nest. The worst thing you can do for a healthy baby is to separate it from its mother. If the bird appears to be unhealthy and is near a nest, leave it alone. Mother birds often purposely rid their nest of doomed offspring.

Every year, people call me about baby rabbits. The familiar story line goes that while mowing, a nest of baby rabbits was discovered with no mother present. Please don't panic and drop the youngsters off at the doorstep of your local nature center. It's normal for the mother to leave her young for hours at a time. She will eventually return to the nest and care for them.

At the risk of making a lot of you upset, I will suggest that the single most compassionate thing you can do to help wild animals is to keep your cat(s) indoors. As a cat lover and owner, I know how much cats long to be outdoors, but I also know how many thousands of wild animals lose their lives to house cats.

When talking about compassion, there are sometimes difficult decisions to make, with no clear-cut "right" or "wrong" answers. But if we all educate ourselves about our local environment and act as responsibly as possible, we can be a force for good in the natural world. ~Eddy