Following coyote cull, Vancouver Park Board to vote on new fines for feeding wildlife
Global News
The Vancouver Park Board is set to approve a new bylaw that would impose a $500 fine on visitors caught feeding wild animals.
Members of the Vancouver Park Board were scheduled to decide Monday evening whether to approve a bylaw that imposes a $500 fine for feeding urban wildlife.
The proposal comes after months of reported coyote attacks in Stanley Park, and a public messaging campaign urging visitors to stop leaving out food that attracts animals.
“It is physically unhealthy for animals, and encourages food-conditioning that can lead to aggressive behavior,” (sic) says a report summary provided to the board.
READ MORE: Vancouver parks director confident Stanley Park is ‘safe,’ but visitors urged to stay vigilant
As it stands, the B.C. Wildlife Act includes provisions against feeding “dangerous wildlife,” but that don’t extend to other urban wild animals.
Current bylaws ban leaving food anywhere in parks apart from in garbage bins, but they don’t specifically address feeding animals or any penalty fot doing so, according to the report.
Parks staff say they’ve used staff monitoring, active removal of scraps, public education and signage. Those methods, however, appear to be falling short.
“The Stanley Park Ecology Society, City of Vancouver, Park Board, and Provincial Conservation Officers Service receive ongoing reports of wildlife feeding in parks, including hand feeding and depositing large amounts of domestic animal or human food on the ground with the intention of feeding wildlife,” reads the report going before the board on Monday night.
