Pacific Grove Police warning “serial deer feeders” the practice is illegal
The Pacific Grove Police Department is speaking out after receiving reports of a “serial deer feeder” in PG.
Their Facebook post reminds residents that it’s illegal to feed wildlife, and they can be cited and fined.
Here is the post: {“author_name”:”Pacific Grove Police Department”,”author_url”:”https://www.facebook.com/pacificgrovepd/”,”provider_url”:”https://www.facebook.com”,”provider_name”:”Facebook”,”success”:true,”height”:null,”html”:”&#lt;div id=”fb-root”&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;n&#lt;script&#gt;(function(d, s, id) {n var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];n if (d.getElementById(id)) return;n js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;n js.src = ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.11’;n fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);n}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));&#lt;/script&#gt;&#lt;div class=”fb-post” data-href=”https://www.facebook.com/pacificgrovepd/photos/a.1690832241246505.1073741828.1622645321398531/1905976513065409/?type=3″ data-width=”552″&#gt;&#lt;blockquote cite=”https://www.facebook.com/pacificgrovepd/posts/1905976513065409:0″ class=”fb-xfbml-parse-ignore”&#gt;&#lt;p&#gt;🦌🚫🍕nnFeed the wildlife and go to jail. nnJ/K, but it is illegal so you can be cited and fined!nnWe've been having…&#lt;/p&#gt;Posted by &#lt;a href=”https://www.facebook.com/pacificgrovepd/”&#gt;Pacific Grove Police Department&#lt;/a&#gt; on &#lt;a href=”https://www.facebook.com/pacificgrovepd/posts/1905976513065409:0″&#gt;Sunday, January 28, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;”,”type”:”rich”,”version”:”1.0″,”url”:”https://www.facebook.com/pacificgrovepd/photos/a.1690832241246505.1073741828.1622645321398531/1905976513065409/?type=3″,”width”:552}
It reads: We’ve been having reports of a “serial deer feeder” in Pacific Grove. This makes us very disappointed. “Why?” you might ask, “Isn’t it caring to provide our furry woodland friends with food?” No, no it’s not, it’s actually the opposite of caring. We could even argue that it’s downright mean.
Deer are wild animals, and as such they must rely on their wild instincts for survival. Once a deer loses their fear of humans, they are much more likely to fall victim to vehicle collisions, predators, or other injuries/death.
A hangry deer is a dangerous deer. If a deer is fed by humans, they’re going to start viewing humans as the source of their food, this in turn is going to make them more demanding and aggressive with humans and domestic animals. This is bad news all around.
More deer = more predators. Mountain lions and coyotes are prey animals, and while they might not like that “city” living, they’re going to want to be where their food is. If there is surplus of deer milling about your house, you can probably bet there are going to be some predators as well. This can increase the threat of an encounter with you and your domesticated critters.
While these are just a few of the reasons why it’s a really really bad idea to feed the wildlife, we hope you will find them compelling enough to not do it. Keep our wild animals wild, it’s better for them and for you.
#pgpdinforming
