New Britain, CT Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Section 17-40(a) of Chapter 17's Article III, Park Use Regulations, is New Britain's core bird-protection rule for city parkland. It bars any person from hunting, molesting, harming, frightening, killing, trapping, chasing, teasing, shooting or throwing missiles at any bird (the same clause also covers animals and reptiles) anywhere in a city park, and separately bars removing, collecting or possessing the eggs, nest or young of any bird. Fishing in any park is likewise prohibited under the same subsection. Subsection (b) adds a poisoning-specific offense: no person may give, offer or attempt to give any bird in a park poison or any other known noxious substance, a distinct charge from the general hunting and molesting clause.

Subsection (c) backs both provisions with a weapons ban, barring firearms, air rifles, spring guns, bows and arrows, slings or any trapping device inside a park at any time, closing off the tools someone would need to hunt or trap a bird there. Section 17-40 was carried forward from the 1970 Code § 22-235(i) and last touched by Resolution No. 32192-2 on March 27, 2013, when the waterfowl-feeding subsection (d) was added; the bird-protection language in (a) through (c) predates that amendment. Enforcement runs through the Board of Park and Recreation Commissioners or its authorized agent under § 17-37, which holds general permit and citation authority for park rule violations, with city police backing up enforcement for conduct that also amounts to a criminal offense such as illegal discharge of a weapon. The protections apply only within city parkland; they do not by their own terms reach birds on private property outside a park.