The state of Mississippi’s Commission on Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks banned bird feeders last week, but the commission is insisting it was just an accident.
The law used to ban only white-tailed-deer feeders and made an exemption for feeders in residential backyards. When the commission deleted these parts of the law last week, it made having a backyard bird feeder a crime.
Now, all feeders — bird or not — have to be more than 100 yards from any property line or building, which means that anyone without a backyard the size of an SEC football statium won’t be able to have one.
Wildlife Bureau director Chad Dacus has since said that the ban was by accident, according to an article by Brian Broom of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
“He agreed that the language seems problematic for backyard birders,” Broom wrote. “He assured me that preventing the feeding of birds in yards was in no way the intent of new regulations and it would be reviewed.”
Broom explained: “Commission chairman Bryan Jones also confirmed that the new language included bird feeders, but, like Dacus, said it was an oversight and would be corrected.”
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.