Lawton, OK Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

City Code Section 19-4-408 designates "the entire area embraced or hereafter included within the corporate limits of the city" as a bird sanctuary, the broadest geographic reach a municipal wildlife ordinance can carry. Section 19-4-409 backs that designation with a direct citywide prohibition: no person may trap, shoot, attempt to shoot, or molest in any manner any bird or wild fowl, or rob a bird nest or wild fowl nest, anywhere in Lawton. The ordinance carves out a narrow, procedural exception for nuisance flocks. If starlings or similar birds congregate in numbers the city health officer judges a nuisance or a menace to health or property, the health officer must first convene a meeting with representatives of groups such as the Audubon Society, a Bird Club, a Garden Club, or the Humane Society, provided those organizations have filed their representatives' names and addresses with the city clerk.

Notice of the meeting must be mailed at least three days beforehand. Only if that meeting produces no satisfactory alternative may the birds be destroyed, and destruction is carried out in the numbers and manner the health officer deems advisable, under supervision of the chief of police. A separate carve-out exempts city employees or agents acting in their official capacity under a permit issued by the chief of police. Both sections trace to Ordinance 99-40, adopted November 9, 1999.