Feeders for birds and tree squirrels excluded from new ordinance
The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance prohibiting feeding wildlife in unincorporated areas of the county on Nov. 19.
The ordinance goes into effect Friday, Dec. 19, but still allows feeding birds and tree squirrels as long as the food is not placed where larger wildlife can access it.
Broadly speaking, feeding wildlife is discouraged by biologists because it causes wildlife to associate humans with access to food and can increase the probability of humans being bitten along with several other issues.
Supervisors Nikki Check [D-District 3] and Chris Kuknyo [R-District 4] and Deputy County Manager Martin Brennan worked on the ordinance and fines range from $100 to $300 and apply only to repeat offenders.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department “monitors the number of interactions between wild animals and humans. It also monitors sightings of wild animals in residential areas,” Brennan said. “Those numbers have been increasing [in Yavapai County], and we’ve all heard of incidents involving interactions with humans and animals that have not gone well. So this really is a public health and safety matter.”
AZGFD tracks Category 1 incidents where wildlife is an immediate threat to humans, and Category 2 incidents where wildlife is a potential threat to humans.
Over the past three years, Yavapai County has seen an increase in these combined wildlife incidents, rising from 27 incidents in 2023, to 31 in 2024, to 53 incidents in 2025 as of Wednesday, Dec. 3. In Sedona, the numbers have been relatively stable, with four incidents in both 2023 and 2024, and five incidents so far in 2025.
“Just looking at the total number of bear calls we received, thus far in 2025 there have been 371 bear calls from AZGFD’s Region 3, which includes most of Yavapai County,” AZGFD spokesman Tom Cadden wrote in a recent email “By comparison, in 2024 there were 148 bear calls from Region 3, and in 2023 there were 143 bear calls from Region 3. Most bear calls we get from that region come from the Prescott area.”
“I know our golf course communities really suffer [but I] don’t have any specifics there, but this ordinance was spurred by a number of individuals reaching out to me, frustrated that law enforcement was not able to help them solve the problem that’s happening in their community,” Check later said.
Brennan said the ordinance applies throughout unincorporated Yavapai County “because that’s the extent of the board’s authority,” but said cities and towns could adopt similar measures. “It’s been reviewed by the sheriff’s office and AZGFD. They both approve of the ordinance. It’s anticipated it would be enforced primarily by AZGFD.”
“We’re definitely in support of it,” Arizona Game & Fish Department District 2 Supervisor Tim Holt said. “There’s a current Arizona Revised Statute that prohibits wildlife feeding as well that was passed years ago. It just doesn’t apply statewide. So whenever the local jurisdictions notice problems or escalating problems with wildlife conflicts as a result of feeding of wildlife, and that’s where we come in and provide that expertise and they develop their ordinance or their law or their rule that they need to to help keep the public [safe].”
ARS §13-2927 prohibits the practice, it only applies to counties with a population over 280,000; Yavapai County has an estimated 252,000 residents.
The city of Sedona approved its own ban in April 2023. Sedona’s ban “was sparked by repeated javelina biting incidents of people feeding javelina in Uptown, and we have not had any incidents to that level, or even near that level since that ordinance was passed,” Holt said.
