Don’t feed wild animals – that’s the directive coming from Creighton town council, in a new animal control bylaw given third and final reading by council.
Councillors approved an amended animal control bylaw at their Nov. 26 meeting.
“The biggest change is probably a fine for feeding wildlife – foxes and stuff like that,” said chief administrative officer Paula Muench.
The new bylaw adds a section disallowing Creighton residents from feeding most wild animals.
“No person shall intentionally feed a wild animal or leave food in such a manner as to attract or become accessible to a wild animal on private or public property,” reads part of the new section to the bylaw.
There will be some exceptions. Under the new bylaw, feeding songbirds will be allowed, provided property owners place birdseed in a feeder “that is sufficiently above grade as to not attract or be accessible to wild animals” and feeders don’t attract large numbers of homing birds. Spilled seed must be removed by the property owner “in such a manner that it does not attract wild animals”.
Property owners will still be able to leave food as bait in a trap to catch a nuisance animal and licensed trappers, police, conservation officers, certified employees and pest control professionals may still do the same.
The bylaw will also include a number of fines for each offense – $200 for the first offense, $400 for the second and $500 for each offense after, including the third.
Revenue sharing
The Town of Creighton will be eligible for provincial revenue sharing once more in 2020.
Working on recommendations from the town’s bylaws, resolutions, policy and fiscal services committee, Creighton council members detailed several requirements set out by the Saskatchewan government to stay eligible for provincial revenue sharing.
In order to be eligible for the program, the Town had to submit audited 2018 financial statements and reports on municipal waterworks to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Government Relations, adopt a council procedures bylaw and an employee code of conduct, stay in good standing with reporting and remittance of education property taxes and have all council members file and update their public disclosure statements. After meeting those requirements, council authorized Muench to sign a declaration of eligibility and send it to the government relations ministry.
Creighton Mayor Bruce Fidler said the guidelines are more or less the same as the ones the Town has had to follow for the provincial revenue sharing program for years, with only minor differences.
“The requirements haven’t changed. It’s just a new way of us sending them the motion that we are complaint and eligible for the revenue sharing program. Before, it was never done over the computer. This is basically a new way of reporting that portion of it,” said Fidler.
“The requirements haven’t changed – it’s just a way of saying that you’re going to be compliant.”
