The Bend City Council will discuss banning the feeding of wildlife inside the city during a work session Wednesday. While feeding wildlife may give homeowners and park visitors a feeling of being close to nature, it’s not good for the critters and can become a problem for the humans they’re sharing space with. And, in fact, it’s already prohibited in all Bend’s parks.

Oregon law makes it illegal to feed bears, cougars, coyotes and wolves, and for good reason. They can be dangerous. While it doesn’t bar feeding deer, doing so is a bad practice. It can make them “habituated” — accustomed to the easy pickings at a deer feeder and relatively comfortable with the people nearby — and that can be a problem. Deer may look gentle, but they’ll fight if they have to. Does have nasty kicks, and bucks’ antlers are effective weapons. Being charged by a 140-pound doe or 200-pound buck running 30 miles an hour is not an experience one needs.

Then there’s this: If deer know there’s food regularly available, they’ll show up and bring friends. That’s one way diseases are spread among the deer population. Moreover, deer gathering for dinner will draw predators such as cougars, and that poses a threat not only to deer and family dogs, but to people.

Finally, feeding deer can actually cause their malnutrition. Their diet is specialized, and offering them goodies that don’t meet their nutritional needs is akin to allowing a child to live on nothing but french fries.

Deer aren’t the only wildlife we shouldn’t feed, either. While kids in the ’50s may have looked at feeding bread to the ducks in the park as a right, it’s not good for the ducks. Geese, ducks and swans were not built to live on bread, and they defecate more as a result. That, in turn, helps spread diseases, among them avian botulism.

There are similar problems with feeding any wildlife, even raccoons and squirrels. We do them and ourselves no favors by feeding them, and whether or not the city decides to outlaw it, we shouldn’t do it.