Gilroy, CA Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Gilroy City Code Section 18.2, part of Chapter 18 governing Public Parks, protects park wildlife directly. Under subsection (b), no person may injure, molest, chase, kill, capture, propel missiles at, or offer a noxious substance to any animal, bird, fish or reptile in a park, and the same subsection separately bars injuring, removing or tampering with a bird's or animal's eggs, nest or burrow. The only carve-out in the section is for known poisonous reptiles, rattlesnakes are named specifically, which may be killed on sight rather than protected.

"Park" is defined in Section 18.1 to mean a park, reservation, playground, swimming pool, recreation center or any other city-owned or city-used area devoted to active or passive recreation, so the wildlife protection reaches beyond formal parks to reservations and recreation centers as well. The same Section 18.2 also protects park property more broadly: subsection (a) bars injuring, marking, defacing, removing or tampering with any structure, sign, pavement, equipment or facility, and subsection (c) extends similar protection to trees, shrubs, plants, flowers, berries, seeds and lawns, including attaching rope or wire to a tree or plant. The recreation department director, defined in Section 18.1, administers the parks where this protection applies, and enforcement runs alongside the department's other park-conduct rules under Chapter 18, including restrictions on vehicles, dumping and posted-area access.