East Baton Rouge Parish, LA Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

The Metropolitan Council designated the area within the corporate limits of the City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana as a bird sanctuary under Sec. 14:400 of Title 14 (Animals), Chapter 4, Protection of Birds. Sec. 14:401 makes it unlawful within those city limits to trap, hunt, shoot or molest in any manner any bird or wildfowl, or to rob a bird's or wildfowl's nest. Two exceptions apply. First, when starlings or similar birds congregate in numbers that city-parish health authorities and the director of the Animal Control and Rescue Center agree constitute a nuisance or a menace to health or property, those officials may order the birds destroyed in whatever numbers and manner they judge necessary to abate the nuisance.

Second, a person holding a scientific collecting permit from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries may collect, capture and possess the organisms the permit allows, limited to the method, area, purpose, storage and personnel the permit specifies. The chapter also exempts trapping or recapturing a bird a person already owns or holds under a permit, so retrieving an escaped pet bird is not a violation. Sec. 00), imprisonment of up to sixty (60) days, or both, at the discretion of the court. Because the sanctuary is tied to the corporate limits of the City of Baton Rouge rather than the whole parish, residents of unincorporated East Baton Rouge Parish and of Baker, Central, Zachary and St. George fall outside this chapter and under whatever separate rules those jurisdictions or state wildlife law provide.