Most animals do not care if they defecate or urinate in their own drinking water supply. Humans for most part will not except for very few idiots.
I recall my pet hamster always did its business in just one corner but don’t remember if it did not care about soiling its food source. Maybe just kept its sleeping side free of droppings.
Are there any animals or birds that make a conscious effort to preserve their food and water supply free from their own droppings?
If not why not.
I’m not sure I can answer you precise question, but my experience of owning pets is that, in general, they are very careful about where they will and won’t do their business (cats burying it in the garden, my dog prefering to go outside, my rabbits always choosing the same corner of their hutch. And I’ve never known any of them to go anywhere near their food or drink supply.
None of the dogs or cats I’ve ever had would urinate or defecate anywhere near their food.
Throwing up is a completely different matter…
Ah, but that’s just more food…
Birds (at least some birds) will keep a nest scrupulously clean, tossing all the chicks’ waste out of the nest as it is produced.
They aren’t as concerned about their drinking water.
The vast majority of aquatic animals defecate and urinate in their drinking water. Most have no choice.
Dogs and cats have been mentioned, and I recall some mention of other carnivores doing the same.
“Water? I don’t touch the stuff. Fish shit in it.”
Bobcats will defecate in water (for example local birdbaths in S Arizona) and this fact is so well established that fish and game personnel will detect their presence by finding feces in ponds and such.
As to why? Perhaps it is marking territory, or making the water unpalatable to other critters, or maybe just kitty angst.
I don’t know about percentages; but I don’t think that’s true of “most animals”; at least, unless we’re counting animals that live in the water, which have no other option, and/or counting defecating or urinating anywhere in their general enviroment such as in the same field they’re grazing in. Most grazing animals in a state of nature are moving around, and may not be returning to eat in the same spot they just eliminated in until various environmental processes have had time to clean it. Many, maybe most, animals that make nests and food storage places eliminate outside them, or in specific places in nests away from sleeping and food locations.
– are the bobcats drinking from the birdbaths/ponds after defecating in them, or drinking first and then doing so, or drinking elsewhere?
And humans most certainly do foul our sources of drinking water and of food. It’s only pretty recently that we decided it’s a bad idea to just dump waste in the rivers and on the fields; we still do so in some places; and the fact that we’ve mostly decided to try not to do it has a whole lot to do with our population level. Outhouses in my area used to be pretty commonly perched on stream banks. When there were only a few people living in the area, that worked just fine. There’s way too many of us to do it now.
We have rabbits and for a long time they would use one corner of their run (we put a tray there, which sometimes they would use and sometimes they would move out of the way before using the same corner). But a few months ago for some reason they just started going anywhere and everywhere, including in their sleeping quarters which they previously never soiled in any way. No idea why, and it’s very annoying!
Our rabbits did that, too.