It's Now Illegal to Feed Geese in Mentor

Keep the bread and corn at home; feeding Canadian geese is now illegal in Mentor. Credit: Flickr

Keep the spare bread and corn to yourself in Mentor, lest you break the law or interfere with the natural rhythms of wildlife.

On Monday, Mentor City Council voted unanimously to include geese in their feeding of “nuisance health risk animals” ordinance, under the belief that tossing the species scraps of lunch leftovers poses severe threats to their natural behavior. And, of course, risks to their (now delinquent) feeders.

“Feeding can lead to normalization with human contact, as well as creating an artificial food source which encourages geese to overstay their migratory pattern as well as take up residence in the city,” a press release read. “The mess they leave behind poses a health threat to humans, domestic animals, as well as other native species.”

A number of U.S. cities have okayed similar bans in recent years. Councils in Taylorville, Ill., West Fargo, N.D., and Port Washington, Long Island, have all drafted geese laws in recent years.

In Connecticut, which hosts cities with similar legal limitations, a popular wildlife sign warns of bird flu or botulism, along with “deformed wings” and “dangerous and unpredictable behavior” in the birds dependent on that corn handout.

“We’re not anti-animal; we’re just pro let-them-live-in-their-natural environment,” Mentor city council President Matt Donovan told Scene on Wednesday.

Donovan, who said the bird law update was “just a language cleanup” in outdated city code, related Monday’s geese-feed ban to Mentor’s history of animal nuisance regulations, most recently their issue with deer overpopulation. (They took a bit of heat for thinning out the herd, Donovan said.)

As for how Mentor Police will address law breakers, Donovan was hesitant to give a sure answer. New code states that violators of that code, 505.21, are guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree, which Donovan said would ideally come as a “warning” on first offense.

“Police will probably just go out and tell people, ‘Hey, this is a new ordinance,'” Donovan said. “But it’ll get people thinking: ‘Have I been feeding geese the wrong way?'”

At Monday’s council meeting, Donovan’s proposed geese feed ban was met with the expected round of questions

“I just kind of find it hard to believe that people are feeding geese,” Councilman Sean Blake surmised. “Usually they’re eating grass. I never though we’d have to have an ordinance to place on the nuisance list—but here we go!”

At one point, councilwoman-at-large Janet Dowling chimed in about her own experience witnessing neighbors hand out large quantities of food for the migrating birds. Some, she recalled, had expressed worry that out-of-towners were coming to Mentor’s lakes just to give geese a meal.

Donovan smiled. “They love our geese so much that they want to feed them,” he said.

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