Mebane, NC Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Mebane City Code Sec. 4-1 designates the area embraced within the corporate limits of the city, and all lands owned or leased by the city outside the corporate limits, as a bird sanctuary, exercising the authority North Carolina gives cities under G.S. 160A-188. Sec. 4-2 then makes it unlawful to trap, hunt, shoot or otherwise kill any native wild bird anywhere in that sanctuary. The only carved-out exception is for starlings or similar birds or fowls that are congregating in such manner and numbers in a particular locality that they constitute a nuisance or a menace to health or property; those flocking nuisance birds may lawfully be trapped.

The sanctuary designation traces to the city's 1952 Code (ch. G, art. III) and has stood unchanged through the 2002 recodification. A related provision, Sec. 4-3, separately bars discharging firearms or projecting objects from slingshots, air rifles, bows and similar devices within the same sanctuary area, though the chief of police may grant special permission to use firearms against rodents or similar animals that threaten public health or property. Because Article I of Chapter 4 carries no penalty clause of its own, an offender falls back on the city's general enforcement scheme.