SPILLWAY CONTROVERSY

Spillway bread ban on hold for a year
Lawmakers: State rethinking plan

By Matt Snyder
Herald Staff Writer

LINESVILLE —
Fans of tossing bread to the fish and waterfowl at the Linesville Spillway can breath a sigh of relief – the practice will continue for at least another year.


Following a scathing public meeting where officials from federal and state park agencies took it on the chin over their plan to ban bread throwing at the Pymatuning State Park attraction, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources decided to take a year to re-evaluate their decision, according to a news release from state lawmakers.

A 300-strong crowd of protesters in Linesville High School said last week that the main draw of the spillway is feeding bread to the carp and ducks that gather there, and that 300,000 visitors every year wouldn’t get as good a show out of the fish pellets mandated by state park officials.

Feeding the animals is a tradition dating back to the 1930s, argued a Crawford County Visitors Bureau spokeswoman. The spillway also receives over 300,000 visitors each year.

“This is about protecting our local tourism industry and protecting a long-standing and affordable family tradition,” state Rep. Michele Brooks, Jamestown, R-17th District, said in the release.

The Department of Conservation’s Bureau of State Parks has agreed to re-evaluate their decision over the next year and consider public and legislative comments from last week’s meeting, said the release.

State lawmakers like Brooks and state Sen. Robert D. Robbins, Salem Township, R-50th District, organized the meeting last Tuesday and directed the audience to the heads of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, who made the decision.

The bread ban was the result of a plan worked out between DCNR and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to control goose overpopulation.

The USDA has a strict “no wildlife feeding” policy, and fish pellets over bread was a compromise necessary to bring in the department’s aid on the goose issue, said DCNR spokesman Robert Barth.

Barth said the geese were gobbling down bread from visitors, along with the fish and ducks, and the USDA didn’t want to try and control the goose population if visitors were feeding them. They thought fish pellets would target mostly the fish populations, which were not their main concern.

Initial reports suggested that feeding the fish bread was banned due to the health of the fish or the ducks.