Park Board By-law Updates — Feeding Wildlife in Parks Sept 27, 2021
Dear Park Board Commissioners, Mgr Donnie Rosa and staff;
I’m writing in regards to the Park Board By-Law update to be decided at the Monday Sept 27 meeting, proposing the Park Board bylaws be amended to outlaw the feeding of ANY wildlife in ALL our 240 parks.
Here is a quiz related to these proposed bylaw changes as it impacts Kits Beach and other Vancouver beach parks and ponds.
Who gets the fine?
1. Illegal off leash dog owners
2. Illegal buskers blasting illegal amplified music
3. Smokers
4. Kids lighting fires and partying at the beach late at night
5. People drinking alcohol on the beach.
6. Guys who pee in the bushes.
7. Someone who throws a few chips to a seagull or seeds to a duck.
Answer — #7 $500
My questions in regards to these proposed by law changes:
1. Where are the rangers coming from to enforce this? You have claimed you don’t have enough rangers to take care of enforcing existing bylaws, in particular noise bylaws. Are more being hired or will existing park rangers be “deployed” from other duties as Commissioner Irwin states in this CBC article? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-park-board-fines-feeding-wildlife-1.6190435
2. You can somehow get ticketing authority for the rangers for feeding wildlife, but not for illegal buskers blasting illegal amplified music in our beach parks? You’ve been telling me for years now that you’ve been trying to get ticketing authority from the City so that the park rangers can actually enforce EXISTING bylaws. So now you can do it for feeding wildlife but not for enforcing noise bylaws?
If you’re going ahead with this, and it’s so easy, why not add unpermitted amplified music and buskers to the list of bylaw offences that can be ticketed by park rangers? And if you’re adding park rangers, why not add enough to enforce the noise bylaws?
The proposed bylaw changes are overkill as well as unenforceable. Why not just focus on the problem area of Stanley Park? Someone throwing a few seeds to the starving ducks at a very stagnant and neglected Vanier Pond, or a few crumbs to the hungry seagulls at the beach, is not going to put anyone at risk of a coyote attack.
Btw, according to this Letter to the Editor about the very stagnant Lost Lagoon, all the ducks, geese and gulls have long fled, so it’s highly doubtful that feeding them has aggravated the coyote problem in the park.
“While Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation (VBPR) has been focused on an ill-conceived and rather cruel plan to euthanize the (verifiable?) thirty-five coyotes living in Stanley Park, Lost Lagoon has sunk into a state of decay and death.
Anyone who walks or jogs the trail around Lost Lagoon with their eyes open cannot help seeing that the once plentiful resident populations of ducks, geese and gulls are gone; they fled several weeks ago when algae bloom turned the water toxic.
And now, dead carp can be seen everywhere. Two dozen pictures of the floating corpses are attached, including those of others gasping for breath around the few drain pipes that were seeping meagre streams of “fresh” water into the polluted pond.
PHOTOS: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=poetpam&set=a.4262687217118200
Loud illegal amplified music in our parks does much more harm to wild birds and fowl, than a few scraps of human food and a bit of bird seed. It also is harmful to humans.
Nature Conservancy Canada: “Human-created noise pollution impacts wildlife… Just as noise pollution negatively impacts human health, it also affects wildlife. It can interfere with animal communication, hinder their foraging abilities and impact where they live.”
Quiet Parks International: “Quiet Parks International is a non-profit committed to saving quiet for the benefit of all life.”
“A world that offers quiet within and without. A world where everyone has daily access to quiet and opportunities to listen to the sounds of nature. A world where the experience of quiet nature is directly linked to inner quiet, peace and joy of being.
When we save quiet, we save everything else.
I look forward to the enforcement of the Park Board Noise Bylaws!
Thank you,
Elvira Lount
