Philadelphia, PA Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Section 10-111, part of Chapter 10-100 (Animals), states the rule in a single sentence: no person shall capture, wound, or kill any bird except in accordance with the provisions of Title 6, the City's Health Code. The Section carries no additional exceptions of its own; the only relief valve is whatever activity Title 6 separately permits, such as licensed pest-control or public-health work. Section 10-111 sits inside the same chapter as other bird-related rules, including Section 10-110's separate ban on feeding pigeons in public streets, squares, parks or places of public resort, and both are enforced through the same city apparatus: the Department of Public Health's Animal Control Agency, working with the Police Department.

Penalties come from the chapter-wide schedule in Section 10-115. Section 10-111 is not among the handful of sections singled out for the heavier Class III minimum fine (those cover kennels, dog fighting, vicious animals and sterilization records), so a first violation falls under the default rule: a fine of not less than $150 and not more than $300. Section 10-111 is also not among the sections excluded from the Repeat Violation rule in Section 10-115(2), so a person who violates the bird-killing ban more than once is guilty of a separate Repeat Violation offense, punishable by a fine of up to $300, imprisonment of up to 90 days, or both, regardless of whether the repeat offense involves the same bird or the same type of violation as the first.