14 DAY TRIAL // Stoke City Council decided to ban any activities that included feeding the wildlife from the public parks. Visitors will not be allowed to feed ducks, pigeons, geese, swans or any other birds that live in the park, as a measure of control over the big number of animals gathering in the area.
Because of complaints regarding “intimidating” birds that cover the park paths in droppings and sometimes attack the bystanders, the city council decided to take some extreme measures. They paid a lot of money for cleaning, but the bread thrown to the birds attracted pests like rats in the public areas.
The park's visitors will soon be fined for feeding the animals in the park. Even if citizens commented on the idea as being ridiculous, officials say the new rule will help keep parks cleaner and animals safer. The new law infuriated some of the parents that used to bring their children to the park especially to feed the wild birds.
“It is something I did as a kid and it's something my nine-week-old daughter Isla will be doing,” a 21-year-old local told the Stoke Sentinel. Others said that rats and bird drops were everywhere and this kind of ban wouldn't change anything, it would just make a pleasant activity disappear, “they [the birds] have been eating bread for years so why stop now?”
One of the officials trying to find a way to ban bird feeding in the park told the local newspaper that “it has been decided, but it is not a policy at the moment, to try to discourage people feeding birds because it attracts an unacceptable number of birds which makes controlling the number of birds difficult.”
The officials also argued that the bread is bad for birds and fish, pollutes the water and that everything they are doing is for the welfare of the birds and the environment. Bird feeding is something like a tradition and a moment of relaxation for many of the park's visitors that have been outraged with the city council's decision and have promised to try and avoid the ban being officiated.