Politics & Government

Middletown Proposing Big Fines for Anyone Who Feeds Coyotes

Middletown wants to issue tough fines against anyone caught intentionally or unintentionally feeding wild animals such as coyotes.

As part of a long-term, multi-faceted plan developed in recent months, the Town of Middletown is working to establish local authority to impose tough fines against those caught feeding wild animals.

Under a newly proposed ordinance that came before the Town Council Monday night, anyone caught intentionally or unintentionally feeding wild animals, such as coyotes, would face fines of $100 to $500 per day the violation occurs.

The ordinance will face a final vote and is expected to pass.

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The new fines would dovetail Department of Environmental Management (DEM) enforcement regulations. If passed, Middletown would become the first municipality in Rhode Island to pass such an ordinance giving local authorities the same power as DEM to enforce state penalties for feeding wild animals, according to Town Councilor Bruce Long.

The new law is intended to slow and reduce the growing population of coyotes on Aquidneck Island, especially within the more suburban and urban areas of Middletown in recent years, where intentional or unintentional feeding has subsidized the coyote packs and enabled the breeding of larger, healthier litters of pups, through such means as unsecured garbage bins, outdoor pet food, or deliberate feeding.

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The new ordinance would allow for exemptions from fines for the feeding of birds and squirrels with properly elevated feeders placed at least 100 feet away from homes.

The ordinance also would require that the feeding of pets outdoors be better managed, with secured lids on food containers and appropriate serving sizes placed out for each feeding time, instead of large quantities of food left out for extended periods of time. Garbage bins and lids also would have to be secured.

Farmers would be required to properly safeguard old, feeble or prey-size animals to further limit the food supply of coyotes.

“It is not our intention to bother someone who is feeding their cat on their back porch,” said Middletown Police Chief Anthony Pesare, who served as interim town administrator at Monday night's council meeting with Administrator Shawn Brown on vacation this week.

Pesare also has worked closely with DEM officials and Dr. Numi Mitchell of the Narragansett Bay Coyote Study to craft the ordinance. The intent, he emphasized, is to have the authority to address people who willfully feed coyotes.

“The biggest problem … is the intentional or unintentional feeding of coyotes,” he said. “The first step will be to educate people on harm they’re doing by feeding coyotes.”

Since Middletown held a summit earlier this year on the island's coyote overpopulation problem, it has come to be known that human’s subsidized feeding of coyotes has led to increased pack populations, overcrowded territories, their encroachment upon suburban neighborhoods in search of more food, loss of farm animals and pets, and eventually the need to hunt and kill the problem coyotes, either by private farmers or the town’s hired coyote hunter.

“Managing coyotes is a multi-faceted problem and this is the first step,” Dr. Mitchell told the council as she endorsed Middletown’s proposed ordinances and Best Management Practices plan for coyotes. She noted the NBCS does not position itself as being either "pro-coyote or anti-coyote" but based its recommendation on "good science and data."

The town's newly adopted Best Management Practices for Coexistence with Coyotes also addresses other areas where food supplies can be reduced, such as the town's assistance in the prompt recovery and disposal of roadkill and farm animals, as well as participation in the state's , which will require the prompt removal of deer carcasses from roads and utilize existing technology to rapidly decompose the carcasses into fertilizer for local farms.


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