Should You Be Fined for Feeding Pigeons?

They cannot buy breakfast at Greggs and I am on the side of St Francis.Depends how and where it's done I guess.I wouldn't encourage flocks of em in my back garden(the odd few is ok) but I'm not averse to dropping a few crusts and rinds in open spaces.I'll probably be arrested before long as well!

Just another way of fleecing money out of us, if I see an hungry bird, I'm feeding it.

Wow, we had better be careful with our granddaughter as we take her to feed the ducks.

My son always threw bread out our back garden for the birds. One day I got a letter from the council saying I had to stop or get fined £5000 as they said it would attract vermin etc. Some kind person must have phoned them, yet when there is a real vermin problem in housing, they take their time to sort it.

I heard that it’s against the law to feed them. Plus they are rodents of the Sky. I turn my back for two minutes and they stole my chicken off my barbecue last summer

My dad feeds this one wood pigeon every day that's always in the same tree and the back of his house

This seems absolute nonsense. People have been feeding birds and wild life in and around their gardens for years. Some of these animals would not survive with this help.

They can only fine you if you give up your details to them to issue a fine

No. As the article indicates this is more about cash strapped councils looking for other ways to get money. Instead, they should be going after fly-tippers and imposing heavier fines.

I do like Pigeons but they do carry a lot of diseases and cause a lot of mess. If it was on a field or somewhere like that I can't see it being a problem but if it's where there are businesses or where people sit I do think there should be a deterrent to stop people feeding them.

I would rather feed pigeons than be swooped by seagulls. They are the worst. Pigeons were fine when they were used in the wars because of their homing ability, as military messengers and, as technology progressed, photographers. During both the First and Second World Wars, carrier pigeons were used to transport messages back to their home coop behind the lines. Seagulls....they steal your food from your mouth

I fed them in my garden four years ago i had two at the time ... couple weeks later i had over 50! i no longer feed them but still do get a couple every day.

I've fed pigeons quite a few times when I had scrap bread when away from home, I've never fed them at my house. Typically I'd have some sandwiches and if I was eating them where birds were present I would save a bit of the crusts for them or maybe the sandwiches were reduced and less than perfect freshness so didn't want the crusts at all myself. Why shouldn't I have the freedom to do that, its a compassionate act and I really don't agree that this should ever be a fineable offence. We have taken natural habitat from them and birds are often forced to look for foods in urban environments.

I live in a place where we have loads of Seagulls and I always seem to finds a couple of pigeons in the garden. Personally I don’t actively encourage them by feeding them, they seem to do a good job of finding food themselves. I do, however, occasionally put out leftovers if appropriate and they soon get gobbled. Otherwise we wouldn’t do it in public places as it would just make it messy and smelly and trying to walk through flocks to where people want to go. So I sort of understand a fine there. Feeding ducks is different. All children like to do this. It’s a shame if notice not to. I think it’s really just about giving them the proper food as bread can hurt them apparently and not healthy for them.