Cheyenne City Council Tackling Seagull Issue In City

The Cheyenne City Council is scheduled to consider an ordinance banning the feeding of seagulls at its regular meeting tonight.

You can read the proposed ordinance here.

Ward III council representative Michelle Aldrich says the issue has come to the forefront because someone in her ward has been drawing large numbers of seagulls to the area by putting out five pound bags of cat food.

She says the offender lives in the Henderson Drive area.

Aldrich says a flock of about 30-50 of the birds have become regular visitors, creating health issues with their waste. She says they have also damaged roofs in the area as well as paint on cars.

Aldrich Says Man Refuses To Stop Feeding Seagulls

Aldrich says the man, whose name she did not mention, has refused to stop leaving the cat food out despite numerous letters and other efforts to get him to stop. For a while a special machine was used to generate a noise to scare the birds away, but as time has gone by the birds have stopped responding to the noise,

She says the ordinance would make the feeding of seagulls as well as ducks and geese inside city limit a misdemeanor. Aldrich says the other issue with current city law on ducks and geese only carries a penalty of a $10 fine, of which she says "That's not much of a deterrent."  She says the fines probably need to be increased to make the law effective.

The ordinance faces second reading tonight before likely facing a third and decisive reading next month.

Aldrich made the comments on the "Weekend In Wyoming' show on Saturday. You can hear those comments below.