Cheektowaga, NY Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

L. No. 6-1992) to stop residents and visitors from feeding wild waterfowl, finding that the practice had produced "serious rat and other predatory animal infestation problems, damage to public parks, water quality problems, traffic hazards, soiled and contaminated private yards and swimming pools" and raised disease risk to residents (§ 252-1). The same section notes the ban also protects the birds themselves, since urban feeding can disrupt migration, cause nutritional problems, increase predation, and spread avian cholera, plague, and botulism. The operative rule is short and absolute: "No person shall feed or provide food for any wild waterfowl at any time during the year within the Town of Cheektowaga" (§ 252-2).

Section 252-3 defines FEED broadly to include placing, depositing, scattering, or distributing corn, wheat, other grains, bread, popcorn, scraps, or any substance liable to be eaten by wild waterfowl in a location the birds can reach, and defines WILD WATERFOWL as nondomesticated waterfowl, migratory or not, expressly including Canada geese and mallard ducks. Because the chapter's definitions are limited to waterfowl, it does not reach backyard feeding of songbirds, squirrels, or deer; those are outside Chapter 252's scope.