CHEYENNE – City Council members and Cheyenne residents discussed an ongoing problem with seagulls in Wyoming’s capital city during the council’s Public Services Committee meeting Monday afternoon.
The conversation was sparked by City Council discussing an amendment to section 6.08.180 of city code – which prohibits people from feeding ducks and geese – to add seagulls to the list.
David Hopkins from the city attorney’s office said the amendment would also remove limitations on feeding seagulls, geese and ducks on private property.
Kathy Emmons, a Ward 2 council member, questioned whether passing the amendment would truly fix the issue.
“I’m totally aware of why we’re doing this, and I know we have an issue,” Emmons said. “My question would be: If we pass this, is there someone who’s actually going to go cite these people? Because I know part of the problem has been that nobody wants to do a citation.”
Director of Compliance Eric Fountain answered Emmons, saying the amendment would give animal control the authority to issue a citation, which they do not have at this time, but are working on getting.
In the event that a community member deflects the citation by saying “I’m not feeding seagulls. I’m just putting out cat food,” Emmons asked if that would fix the problem.
Fountain answered by saying it would probably not fix everything.
“Seagulls are scavengers; they eat whatever you throw out for them,” Fountain said. “So I think, in this particular situation, this individual is using cat food to sort of lure them in, if you will. But we’re aware of that. We’ll do our best to take the path forward to issue a citation for that violation.”
Zachary Mangin, a resident who lives on Henderson Drive, said he started a petition to end the seagull problem in his neighborhood a month ago that got more than 20 signatures.
Mangin said the neighborhood has a “problem child” that continues to feed the seagulls, even after many residents have requested they stop.
“Everyone in my neighborhood appreciates the work,” Mangin said, “but we want some teeth to this, and we want citations to be issued.”
Ward 3 councilor Michelle Aldrich said the council has been working on fixing the issue for more than two years.
The efforts include setting off a “sound bomb” to keep seagulls away, and training “bird dogs” to help steer birds out of communal areas.
“While I don’t necessarily think we should create ordinances to address individual problems, I do think this has gone beyond what we’re able to do with our resources and other things we’ve tried,” Aldrich said.
The council members on the committee voted unanimously to recommend the amendment be approved at the next meeting on third reading.
“I appreciate this because, as the director of the health department in my day job, we’ve also been working on this with Director Fountain for over two years, and have found no way in our statute or our codes or regulations that we can deal with this,” Emmons said. “It’s just been a very difficult, weird issue.”