Lynchburg, VA Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

City Code Sec. 7-11, titled 'Killing birds,' provides that it is unlawful for any person to kill any sparrow, martin, wren or other bird within the city. ' In practice that means Lynchburg's own ordinance protects native and songbird species broadly (anything other than the three named exceptions) from being killed within city limits, while control of nuisance species like starlings and pigeons is pushed up to whatever state wildlife regulations otherwise apply, rather than being locally unregulated. The provision traces back to Code 1959, Sec.

4-11, and was last amended by Ord. No. O-84-192 in 1984, showing it has stood largely unchanged for four decades. It sits in Article I of Chapter 7 (Animals and Fowl), alongside the separate Sec. 7-10 ban on killing fish by trap, net, seine, dynamite or fish berries, both general wildlife-protection provisions that predate the more detailed dog-and-cat article that follows.