City warns woman not to feed the squirrels in her yard
Letters
A bylaw officer visited my home recently to advise my husband and I of a complaint about us feeding wildlife. Apparently, Kawartha Lakes prohibited this, meaning I cannot give a chipmunk or squirrel a peanut. I couldn’t believe it. I have lived here for 35 years and never heard of such a thing.
Up until a year-and-a-half ago, I hated squirrels, because they would eat my flowers. I didn’t realize how hungry they really were. So, on my brother’s advice, I started feeding them. After a while, they started leaving my flowers alone. Before long, we were buddies. We enjoyed their presence — they helped us fight anxiety and depression.
Some of our neighbours also feed them, but the complaint was against us. (We’ve had to call bylaw when some of our neighbours had open-air fires, so I can’t help but think this call was retaliation.) I suffer from asthma and deserve to breathe fresh air. I also don’t see anything wrong with giving a chipmunk or squirrel a peanut. Heck, there’s a popular Instagram account of someone feeding a chipmunk in Lindsay.
– Teresa Messina, Lindsay
The regulations are in place to consider how animals survive, especially in an urban environment. Wild animals that live in our backyards have survived there because of naturally available food, water, and shelter. If wild animals are conditioned to depend on a human for food, they turn away from foraging and when the food source diminishes or the human changes their feeding habit, the animal is less likely to survive.
– Aaron Sloan, manager, municipal law enforcement and licensing, Kawartha Lakes
Where do you live? I’d be happy to come over to your house and give the squirrels a few peanuts. Then, your nosy neighbor can’t report you for feeding them. I feed the squirrels and chipmunks in my yard. I like seeing them. And it’s no ones business but mine. It’s astonishing to me that by-law officers have nothing better to do than this. The old adage about ‘low hanging fruit’ comes to mind.
Feed them anyway. What are they going to do? Take you to jail? Just put the food in a bird feeder, your feeding birds, not your fault the squirrels eat it too!
Someone feeds squirrels in my neighbourhood. The squirrels come to our home, bury their peanuts and leave a mess when eating their peanuts at our home. We have had an increase in rodents in the Fall, since this happened. We keep our yard clean. The squirrels can find their own food. They are well equipped.
I see the squirrels are not the only ones dealing with the “nuts”