Don’t worry, birds won’t become dependent on you feeding them, OSU study suggests Jim Rivers, OSU College of Forestry A study in which birds were banded with RFID chips and feeders were equipped with chip readers showed the birds did not become reliant on human-provided food CORVALLIS, Ore. (KTVZ) – Oregon State University researchers have some good news for the well-meaning masses who place bird feeders in their yards: The small songbirds who visit the feeders seem unlikely to develop an unhealthy reliance on them. “There’s still much we don’t know about how intentional feeding might induce changes in wild bird populations, but our study suggests that putting out food for small birds in winter will not lead to an increased dependence on human-provided food,” said Jim Rivers, an animal ecologist with the OSU College of Forestry.