“Anybody can tell you.....”
Now you got me curious. While it does seem like feeding wild animals could be bad in that it would lure them into close contact with humans, I find it hard to believe it would actually impare their survival skills. I can’t imagine seeing a flock of ducks just sitting around on a pond, slowly starving to death, because someone quit feeding them. In fact, couldn’t it be argued that the extra feed could make them stronger and thus lay more eggs, raise more ducklings, etc.? I personally don’t have strong feelings on the issue one way or the other. It just strikes me as a little extreme to think wild animals are so helpless.
My comment actually started out as a parody, but since you ask. When I was a kid in the early 60’s I went to Yellowstone. The rangers told us that if the tourists fed the bears, the bears would just hang around the tourists all summer. The problem was the tourists stopped coming in late summer, but the bears just kept hanging around waiting for a handout. Finally, the bears would go to hibernation but without sufficient body fat to last until spring, and they’d die. The problem is that relying on people does not provide a constant source of nourishment like foraging and/or hunting skills do. Domestic animals can rarely adapt to survival in a feral state. Feeding migratory birds can disrupt migration and lead to their not being where they should be when winter sets in. The bottom line is when you start feeding them be prepared to do it permanently, like your pets. Wild animals are like people, and will become as helpless as circumstances will allow.