You can now be fined for feeding urban wildlife in Vancouver parks

Anyone who feeds wildlife at a Vancouver park can now be fined $500.

On Monday evening, the Vancouver Park Board (VPB) enacted its amended Parks Control & Ticket Offences Bylaws. In addition to direct feeding, the $500 fine can also be issued to anyone caught leaving or placing a food attractant that can attract wildlife.

This includes raccoons, rodents, coyotes, and birds.

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“This is to deter people from feeding wildlife both directly/inadvertently in parks, which interferes with normal foraging, hunting, and population numbers,” the Vancouver Park Board explains in a tweet. “It is physically unhealthy for animals, and encourages food-conditioning that can lead to aggressive behaviour.”

This is to deter people from feeding wildlife both directly/inadvertently in parks, which interferes with normal foraging, hunting and population numbers. It is physically unhealthy for animals, and encourages food-conditioning that can lead to aggressive behaviour. 2/2

— Vancouver Park Board (@ParkBoard) October 5, 2021

The decision to amend the bylaw and implement the fine was voted on unanimously in late September. Prior to the amendment, there were no provisions in the VPB’s bylaws that forbid the public from feeding wildlife in the park.

Since December of last year, there have been over 40 attacks related to aggressive coyotes.

Due to the severity and frequency of the attacks, including several that involved children, the Park Board began to close Stanley Park every night at 7 pm, beginning on August 31. Part of the operation involved the trapping and killing of several coyotes.

The nightly closure lifted before the end of September, but on the very same day the park reopened, two people were arrested for feeding coyotes.

With files from Amir Ali