Feeding bread to ducks and other birds is part of the scenery in this country, but many of us don’t realise how bad it is for the birds and our water.

The Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) is asking residents of the Netherlands to report (not rat out!) instances of feeding ducks (Google form) to get an idea of where and how often this happens. According to the NIOO-KNAW, there’s a discrepancy between what we say that we do and what we think the effect is, and they are trying to get a handle on it by asking people to help out.

Bread in water produces algae that is bad for the quality of the water and therefore for the birds. Bread is also bad food for ducks because besides not being a natural food source for them, it lack many nutrients ducks need and it’s full of salt.

Not feeding ducks is extremely easy to do as well.