Jupiter, FL Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Sec. 5-3, carried forward from the 1975 code, declares the entire town a bird sanctuary and makes it unlawful to trap, hunt, shoot, attempt to shoot, or molest in any manner any bird, or to rob a bird's nest. The section carves out a narrow health-and-property exception: officials may destroy birds or fowl only when they are congregating in such numbers in a particular locality that they constitute a nuisance or menace to health or property, and only after a qualified authority issues that nuisance declaration.

Even then, the code requires duly constituted officials to conduct a thorough investigation first, and treats trapping or killing as a last resort, not to be used unless the Audubon Society, a bird club, or a humane society is unable to find a satisfactory alternative. The sanctuary designation sits inside chapter 5, Animals, alongside the town's cruelty, at-large, and nuisance-animal rules, so the chapter's general penalty in Sec. 5-2 applies: a violation draws a fine on the civil-citation schedule authorized by chapter 8, and if the town captures, feeds, or cares for an animal, the judge must add those costs to the fine.

Because the ordinance protects any bird without a species carve-out, it applies town-wide to everything from shorebirds and wading birds to backyard songbirds, on top of federal and state wildlife protections that already cover most native species.