Salmon Arm’s New Animal Rules Explained

Something happened recently that the people of Salmon Arm have been waiting decades for. A change to the animal bylaws in town. You know, that thing you were wanting for Christmas this year.

After nearly 30 years of regulating animals with a bylaw that was likely typed up on the recently released Windows 95 operating system, council has decided to drag the old bylaw into the present day.

What exactly was changed in this landmark ruling? Glad you asked.

🐮 Got Milk?

The bylaw from 1995 apparently included a now-obsolete provision requiring residents to milk cows daily and keep the milk. Which raises many questions, like: where were the cows? Who was milking them? And why was the city so concerned about dairy storage logistics?

Anyway, that’s gone now. Grab your cows by the teat and do what you please with that sweet sweet cow juice. There's no rules holding you back anymore. Be free!

🐔 Got... Eggs?

Thinking of starting your own farm fresh egg stand in Hillcrest? Maybe an underground cock-fighting ring in Canoe? Here’s how many chickens (or rabbits — because apparently those are interchangeable?) you can now legally own:

• Under 0.5 acre → 2 poultry or rabbits.
• 0.5–1 acre → 6 chickens.
• 1–2 acres → 10 cluckers.
• Over 2 acres → 24 egg squeezers.

If you absolutely need to grow your chicken army beyond the limits, you can petition the city to make an exception for you. If you were waiting 30 years for the chance to have a rooster in your backyard, bad news, that one is still banned. For now...

There are some other minor rule changes regarding setbacks for chicken coops, bird flu prevention, and manure storage. But the real kicker? You are strictly forbidden from slaughtering chickens in your backyard. You wanted to give your neighbours kids a hands-on lesson about the circle of life? Not so fast! Keep that carnage indoors and the city will leave you alone.

I couldn't verify this, but I believe the penalty for murdering your poultry in your driveway is 2 dozen eggs and your remaining chickens get labelled as endangered and are given free therapy sessions with the CEO of PETA.

🐝 You've Got To Bee Kidding Me

You can also now keep bees. The bylaw includes specific setback distances and fencing rules to avoid awkward conversations like, “Hey, Alan, your bees swarmed my hot tub again.”

They discussed making sure you block direct flight paths into neighbouring yards or pedestrian areas, but let's be honest, the best you can do is make polite suggestions to your swarm of bees and hope for the best. Any creature that can fly can kinda do whatever they heck they want.

By the way, if anyone reads this part about bees and thinks "Hey, maybe we should keep bees and sell cute little jars of honey at the farmers market", just don't. Have an original thought.

🕊️ Pigeon Panic

A sleeper hit of the bylaw: pigeon regulations. Yes, those mid-level sky rats got their own section. Who knew that people even would want to own pigeons, but apparently some people have extremely little going on in their life. They didn't get into specific numbers but basically you can keep some pigeons, just don't go crazy, although if you own pigeons, you're likely already on the crazy train. (RIP Ozzy Osbourne.)

And again, there are specific rules on setbacks for pigeon pens on your property, because there's nothing more important to our city leaders than precise measurements of houses, garages, workshops, and now pigeon pens.

🐕 Who's a Good Boy?

Now we come to what everyone really cares about, dogs. You are still required to licence and tag them, nothing new there. And we definitely all take that one seriously...

You are allowed to have up to 4 dogs on your property, unless they are guide dogs or RCMP dogs, to which there are no limits. Someone is gonna interpret that as permission to raise a legion of police dogs on their 0.17 acre lot, and I can't wait for that news story to conquer headlines.

They've now got specific rules on what constitutes an official nuisance when it comes to barking. If your dog barks for 10 minutes straight or 20 minutes sporadically, then your neighbour can have you deported to El Salvador. There's about to be a run on stopwatches purchased by professional stay-at-home Karens.

The last couple of notes on the dog issue is that if your dog escapes your yard three times in a year you have to put it in prison, and skateboarding while tethered to a dog is now officially against the rules, because apparently that was a big problem.

🐱 Cats? What Cats?

Salmon Arm's official stance on cats: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

According to city staff, trying to regulate outdoor cats would be a “black hole of resources.” Translation: “We aren't going near those demons.” Council is deliberately choosing not to regulate cats. What a horrible mistake. And I'm not the only one who thinks that, even the Environmental Advisory Committee thinks that there needs to be mandatory spaying and neutering, and that cats should wear harnesses and bells. To be honest, I think cat owners would be more choked about the harnesses and bells than the mutilation, but hey, that's cat people for ya.

I also feel compelled to point out that cat owners are definitely getting special treatment here. You can only have up to 4 dogs, and you have to pay every year for the licence (which went up again), and they have to have their reproductive areas disarmed, and they get microchipped and tracked by the city if they exhibit bad behaviour, and they have to limit their barking to 20 minutes a day or else they'll get euthanized, but you can have an unlimited amount of cats for free with no rules on their behaviour.

Whether you're a dog person or a cat person, you've gotta admit, that's insane. On an unrelated note, here are some stories of Cats killing humans.

That's all we got from this important meeting. Many animals were noticeably left out of the conversation, which has me wondering, where am I supposed to register my pet racoon that protects my goats and Indian runner ducks from my neighbours pet beaver? What about the guy 2 doors down that has a porcupine, 2 skunks, and a manatee in his backyard pool, is he breaking any bylaws? Do I need to tell my nephew that the mayor will arrest him if he doesn't shake up his ant farm?

You may have completely shirked your duties when it comes to cats, oh sweet bylaw overlords, but we've got a zoo over here that doesn't take kindly to being ignored.

What’s Next?

The bylaw was passed and will now be shipped off to the Environmental Action Committee and Agricultural Advisory Committee for more feedback, possibly posted online for public comment, and maybe even warrant a full-on public meeting, if enough residents are fired up about pigeon limits and bunny quotas.

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