City Weighs Ban on Feeding Waterfowl

All is not ducky at the Civic Center pond.

Since spending $180,000 to modernize the pond, cleanse its once-murky waters and relocate the dozens of ducks and geese that called the pond home, city officials warn that several domestic fowl have been illegally returned to the water and now threaten to re-pollute it.

In an effort to maintain the water’s cleanliness and keep the pond safe for wild ducks, officials are considering making it a fineable offense to feed the fowl.

“Our goal is to discourage people from feeding the ducks,” City Manager George Tindall said. “They’re not doing the ducks a favor. Sooner or later, we’ll have too many, and it will cause a problem with water quality again, and if that happens, after spending $180,000, we’ll have to drain the pond and fill it in.”

City Council members agreed to consider an ordinance regulating duck feeding and establishing a fine. A draft ordinance should be available for council review sometime this summer.

Rather than having “duck police” patrol the pond, which sits behind the Garden Grove Regional Library on Stanford Avenue, Tindall said, citizens, city employees or police officers could issue citations when they witness residents throwing bread or other food into the pool. It would also be an offense to bring a duck or goose to the pond.

“There is a limit ecologically about how many fowl can use the water,” Tindall said. “If wild fowl land there and you don’t feed them, they’ll fly on.”

Tindall and others are concerned, however, that domestic ducks and geese that were moved to the city’s Twin Lakes Park last year when the Civic Center pond was closed have been illegally transported back to the newly opened pond and threaten to pollute its delicate balance.

About five geese, five ducks and at least one fish are living in the Civic Center pond, which has been open to the public for about three weeks.