Yorkton not spot for pet pigs, ball pythons, sugar gliders

YORKTON – If you want to own a passel of pussycats, Yorkton is no for a longer period the metropolis for you. 

Inhabitants will now be confined to five cats – except you are with a verified rescue — pursuing Yorkton Council unanimously passing a collection of amendments to the Animal Regulate Bylaw at the typical meeting of Council Monday. 

“This transform is in response to some concerns we are facing with attributes housing also several cats. We are proposing to restrict the number of cats for each residence to five,” defined Nicole Baptist – Bylaw & Protection Supervisor with the Town. 

There had also been a consideration to license cats, but that was not portion of the amendments. 

“It’s significant to be aware that Administration has regarded licensing cats the same way that we licence puppies. As a result of our study, most municipalities licence cats. The licensing course of action may possibly also aid us regulating how several cats are living in each and every home. However, at this time, Administration is recommending that we do not licence cats mainly because we do not have the employees methods to preserve a cat licence database,” mentioned the report to Council. 

The amendments did include folks trying to keep honeybees needing a license, but not leafcutter bees. 

“Administration would advocate that the City only licence for honeybees. The measurement of honeybee hives is a lot larger with a lot of more bees than the leafcutter beehives that we are viewing. In the long term if leafcutter beehives in the community do grow to be larger, we could require to revisit this, but at this point Administration recommends that leafcutter bees be authorized, but not have to have licences,” mentioned Baptist. 

Baptist also famous over the past pair decades the City has received a small handful of requests or interest in permitting far more animals that are at the moment prohibited. 

The requests included sugar gliders, chickens, miniature pigs and ball pythons. 

In phrases of sugar gliders “through even more research, Administration figured out that sugar gliders are not permitted under the Captive Wildlife Rules and hence we are not capable to allow for this beneath our Bylaw,” mentioned Baptist. 

Pigs and chickens were being also a no. 

“The the greater part of municipalities in Saskatchewan do not allow chickens or miniature pigs,” made available Baptist. 

Baptist explained chickens often catch the attention of foxes and coyotes so had been not advised. 

As for pigs “Administration does not endorse that we allow miniature pigs due to the chance of the pigs heading feral and performing considerable property damage,” she explained. 

“Currently in our Animal Management Bylaw, all pythons and boas are prohibited and this is the situation in the extensive majority of other municipalities in the Province. Even though ball pythons are now permitted beneath the Captive Wildlife Laws, Administration endorses that we do not allow ball pythons as we are not outfitted with the assets to handle it should the snakes ever get loose,” ongoing Baptist.