The Village of Pittsford has won a few big fights in its time — usually conflicts stemming from its strict building codes. But it has been bested by the ducks and geese that hang out along Schoen Place.
The waterfowl are a fixture of the popular Erie Canal business district, and the public flocks to feed the flocks. But the steady source of food encourages ducks and geese to concentrate in the area and, to be blunt, the birds leave a lot of poop. Visitors often feed bread to the fowl, which only makes the mess worse.
The village is in charge of cleaning up the area, and officials have tried for years to discourage the public from feeding the birds. But now, village officials are changing tack. They’ve started a process to strike a ban on feeding wildlife along Schoen Place, and have scheduled a public hearing on the matter for 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 18, at Village Hall, 21 North Main Street.
“The majority of the board felt it was unenforceable,” Mayor Bob Corby says of the prohibition.
Officials plan to provide the public with information about which foods are appropriate for the birds, Corby says.
Mike Wasilco, regional wildlife manager for the Department of Environmental Conservation, says that what people feed the waterfowl can be a problem. Ducks and geese can catch a fatal lung infection from moldy food, he says. And much of what people feed the birds is basically junk food devoid of the nutrients they’d get from their natural diets, he says. Bread is the worst, he says, followed by corn and mixed bird seed.
“A pelleted feed providing balanced nutrition is best,” Wasilco wrote in an e-mail.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2014.
Informative signage in Perinton Park seems to be doing the job there. It merely states that feeding ducks human food, like bread, can actually harm them. The duck population is noticeably smaller than before the public education program began.
Maybe if they’d like people to feed the ducks something specific, the shops along Schoen Place should sell that feed. The article states that corn is bad, but the businesses sell $1 bags of cracked corn to feed the ducks with. Switch that out for pellets or whatever and I’m sure 90% of the people will use that.
We need to think about the consequences of our actions. Be considerate of the people who have to clean up the mess. Don’t feed the birds.