Cicero, IL Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Sec. 18-9, titled 'Killing birds,' sits in Article I of the Animals chapter and reads as a single, direct prohibition: no person shall kill or wound or attempt to kill or wound, by the use of a firearm, slingshot, bow and arrow, or other weapon, any bird within the town limits. The section applies Town-wide, to any bird species, and covers both a completed act and a mere attempt, so a person who shoots at a bird and misses is still in violation. It was originally adopted in the Revised Ordinance of April 9, 1917 (ch.

36, § 1459) and carried forward unchanged into the 1958 Code at § 25-7 and then into the current codification; the text has not been amended since. The section works alongside Sec. 18-5's separate ban on poisoning birds or other animals, and Sec. 18-1(c), which requires pigeon owners to coop their birds rather than let them fly loose, giving Cicero three distinct routes for protecting birds within its limits: a weapons ban, a poison ban, and a containment requirement for domestically kept pigeons. No exception is written into Sec. 18-9 itself for hunting, pest control, or nuisance birds.