Problem Solving

Is It Illegal to Feed Seagulls?

Not under any US federal or state law we found, and not nationally in Canada or England. It is illegal in a scattering of towns, not all of them on the coast. Most bans stop at the beach or the park; a few reach your yard.

No, not in most places: no federal or state law we found bans feeding gulls. It is illegal where a town says so, and town codes differ on whether they reach past the beach into your yard.

We read twelve local rules, six from the code text, one from a town summary and five through news reports, plus the federal rules. Ducks and geese, which the same ordinances often name, have their own page, and so do pigeons.

The rules we read#

For your own yard, the column that matters is "Your backyard."

Six cover private property. Surfside Beach and Smiths Falls exempt bird feeders; Ocean Township, Homer, Allen Park and St. John's can catch one.

Why the answers online disagree#

Search the question and you get two answers: that feeding gulls is illegal because they are protected, or that it is only illegal on a few famous boardwalks. Both are wrong.

"Gulls are protected, so feeding them is illegal." Gulls are protected against being killed, captured, kept or having nests with eggs destroyed. That is why you cannot shoot the gull raiding your feeder. No federal rule we read touches feeding one outside a national park.

"It's only illegal on a few boardwalks." Beach bans make the news, but Burlington, Vermont, Homer, Alaska and Allen Park, Michigan are not beach resorts, and two of them reach private property. Gulls follow food inland, and so do the ordinances.

Why towns bother is not in dispute: USDA Wildlife Services says gulls "alter their behavior to take advantage of available food sources."

What federal law covers#

There is no species called a seagull. The federal list of protected migratory birds, 50 CFR 10.13, names the gulls one by one: herring, ring-billed, laughing, great black-backed, California, western, glaucous-winged, Franklin's and more. Every gull we looked for is on it. The USDA gull guide (May 2018) spells out what that means:

• "Gulls may be taken only with a permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," and only after non-lethal methods "have been employed and proven ineffective."
• "No federal permit is needed, however, to frighten or mechanically exclude gulls."
• "Permits are required to remove gull nests that contain eggs." The general nest rule is in is it illegal to remove a bird nest, and a gull feather from the beach is covered in is it illegal to keep bird feathers.

Feeding is not on that list. The exception is federal land: in national park units, 36 CFR 2.2(a)(2) prohibits "the feeding, touching, teasing, frightening or intentional disturbing of wildlife," with no carve-out for gulls. National seashores are park units; the penalty is on the duck feeding page.

Beach towns: the sand and the boardwalk#

Ocean City, New Jersey. In July 2016 Mayor Jay Gillian said the city's wildlife feeding ordinance would be "strictly enforced," with a fine up to $500 and up to 90 days in jail. That October, NBC Philadelphia reported that not one ticket had been written all summer.

Beach Haven, New Jersey. Chapter 210 bans feeding wildlife "in any public park or on any other property owned or operated by the Borough." Wildlife means "all animals that are neither human nor domesticated," so gulls are in. This is the standard New Jersey pattern, compared town by town on the duck page.

Kure Beach, North Carolina. Since May 2024 it has been "unlawful for any person to feed the birds while on the beach or while in or on any public place adjacent to or abutting the beach." The first offense is $25, the second a misdemeanor, and enforcement is complaint-driven. WECT reported that food dropped by accident does not count. The town's committee minutes from March 2024 note that a local restaurant was supplying old bread to feed the birds.

Surfside Beach, South Carolina. In June 2026 the council voted 6 to 1 that "no person within the town's limits may feed wildlife, including geese and seagulls," with a fine up to $500 or up to 30 days. Bird feeders are exempt.

Bans that reach your yard#

Ocean Township, New Jersey (the Township of Ocean in Ocean County, not Ocean City). Section 95-17: "No person or persons shall feed, cause to be fed or provide food for seagulls, Canada geese, ducks or other water fowl in the Township of Ocean on property either publicly owned or privately owned." There is no intent word. The only exception is "humane acts," such as "the temporary nurturing of a wounded bird on one's own premises." The fine is up to $100, or up to 10 hours of community service. We read the code as archived in 2015.

Homer, Alaska. Chapter 5.38 (2006): "No person shall intentionally feed or bait wild bald eagles, crows, ravens or gulls anywhere within the Homer City limits." Owners and tenants may not "cause or allow" it on their property, and every day of feeding is a separate offense. The fine is in a city schedule we did not read.

Burlington, Vermont stops short of the yard. Section 21-30.2 (1991) bans anyone who would "deliberately dispense or distribute feed for or feed any sea gulls" in a street, park, building "or any other public place in the city." It is a civil offense, $50 to $500, with a $50 waiver ticket. The section before it says the same about pigeons.

The words that decide a backyard case are "deliberately," "intentionally" and "knowingly." Homer and Burlington need you to mean it. Ocean Township does not say, and Allen Park writes in a shortcut.

Allen Park: where a tray feeder is evidence#

Allen Park, in Wayne County, Michigan, rewrote its feeding rule in February 2025, Section 6-21(a) makes it unlawful "to feed pigeons or sea gulls anywhere in the city," or knowingly to put food out for them. Then the shortcut: "The scattering of food or food scraps on the ground or in an open, free access container, or a tray by an individual shall be prima facie evidence that the individual intended to feed pigeons or sea gulls."

So a platform feeder or seed on the ground is evidence against you, whatever you meant it for. Other wild birds may be fed only from a feeder that keeps out other animals, hangs at least 48 inches up, is designed to stop seed falling, has openings no wider than 2 inches and holds no more than 2 pounds. Trays and platforms are banned outright, with a limit of five feeders.

A small tube feeder passes; a ground feeder does not. Any feeding is also unlawful if it makes birds gather on a neighbor's property or lets food pile up on the ground. Fines are $250, then up to $500, then $1,000, and the city can clean up and put a lien on the property.

Canada: St. John's and two Ontario towns#

Outside national parks Canada has no national feeding law (see are bird feeders illegal in Canada). St. John's, Newfoundland has the strictest wording we found. Since June 2019, section 5.1.1 of its Residential Property Standards By-Law bans feeding wildlife on a residential property, or leaving food out "in such a manner as to attract or be accessible by Wildlife." Songbirds are exempt only from clean bird feeders, two per property (one more per extra 465 square meters of lot), with spill "removed and disposed of without delay," and only if the feeding "does not attract insects, rodents, gulls, crows, birds of prey, or flocks of pigeons." If gulls come, the exemption is gone.

Midland, Ontario's By-law 97-36 "prohibits the feeding of Canada geese and seagulls within municipal parks." Smiths Falls, Ontario banned feeding birds or wildlife in public areas and at private residences in 2018, with a $150 fine, after a complaint about gulls a neighbor fed. Yard bird feeders are exempt.

England and Jersey#

England has no national ban. Lyme Regis Town Council's gull guidance (July 2024) says so plainly: "There are no bye-laws to say you cannot feed seagulls." Herring gulls "are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981."

Local bans come from Public Spaces Protection Orders under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. East Devon District Council bans feeding gulls on the beaches at Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Beer and Seaton, and had fined at least one person by 2023; the same report puts the on-the-spot fine at up to £100, and up to £1,000 in court. Gardens are outside it, though feeding that bothers neighbors can bring a community protection notice (see the pigeon page).

Jersey, in the Channel Islands, went further in 2018: under its Statutory Nuisances Regulations 2017, "it's against the law to feed wild birds or other creatures in a way that means they become a nuisance or harmful to health."

Gulls at your bird feeder#

USDA lists "refuse" and "human food" among what gulls eat, and says local gulls "may fly 15 miles or more from roosting or nesting sites to feed." A yard well inland can draw them if there is open food. The changes that keep you inside every rule above also end the visits:

• No scraps or bread. See bread and kitchen scraps and what not to feed birds.
• Retire trays and ground feeding where gulls show up, as you would for grackles. Use a tube or a hopper feeder, or a caged feeder that admits only small birds.
• Catch the spill. Seed under a feeder is food on the ground under every rule that mentions it. See seed mess, hulls and dead grass and no-mess blends; spill also feeds rats.
• Hang it high. Allen Park's 48 inches is a minimum; see how high to hang a bird feeder.
• Scare and exclude. No federal permit is needed to frighten gulls or wire a roof against them. A nest with eggs needs one.

Where this page stops applying#

• Other towns. Search your town's code for "gull," "sea gull" and "seagull" (all three spellings appear), then "feeding of wildlife." How to look up a code is in neighbors and ordinances.
• Five rows come from news reports, not the ordinance text: Ocean City, Kure Beach, Surfside Beach, Smiths Falls and East Devon. Midland comes from the town's own summary. Penalties may have changed since.
• Archived copies. Ocean Township (2015), Beach Haven, Homer (2024) and St. John's (2025) were read from archived copies because the live sites refused us. Check for later amendments.
• State parks, beaches and piers have their own rules, which we did not read.
• Elsewhere in the UK. We read nothing for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, and only one English council order, through press reports.

This is a reading of ordinances, bylaws and regulations, not legal advice.