Evanston, IL Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

Section 8-3-8-2 of the Evanston City Code is the ground feeding ban at the center of the city's wild/feral mammal and bird feeding rules, which fill Section 8-3-8 of Chapter 3 (Nuisances) in Title 8 (Health and Sanitation). The operative sentence is short: all feed must be placed within an approved container, receptacle or feeder designed for feeding wild/feral mammals and/or birds. The definitions in § 8-3-8-1 make the ban wide. "Feed" covers birdseed, bird feed, corn, bread pieces, food scraps and domestic animal food, and "feeding" means the spreading, casting, laying, depositing or dumping of feed on any private or public property within the City. The protected class is any mammal or bird not considered domesticated, and the code lists gray squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, rats, mice, rabbits, raccoons, opossums, skunks, pigeons, sparrows, mourning doves, starlings and crows.

The companion sections turn the ban into a set of numbers. Under § 8-3-8-3, each residential or business/commercial lot may hold no more than 4 hanging feeders, 2 suet feeders, 2 water dispensers and 1 platform feeder, while hummingbird feeders have no limit. Ornamental ponds do not count as water dispensers. Section 8-3-8-4 caps the base area of any feeder at 400 square inches and requires a design that minimizes nuisance, including excessive spillage of feed. Platform feeders get the tightest rules in § 8-3-8-5: no more than one pound of feed at a time, a lip at least one inch high around the whole platform, and removal of all unused food before sunset each day unless the platform has a tightly closing cover, in which case the cover must be closed before sunset. Section 8-3-8-6 requires every feeder to sit at least 5 feet inside the property lines. Section 8-3-8-7 adds a cleanliness duty: unused food product, food waste and animal droppings cannot accumulate and become foul, putrid, offensive in odor or an attractant to rodents, vermin or insects.