Tallahassee, FL Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Section 13-34(b) lists conduct barred in any city park or recreational facility. Item (3) is broad and specific at once: it is unlawful to kill, injure, harm, capture, chase, poison or remove any wildlife, animal, bird or egg located above, in, on or under park grounds, which reaches nests and eggs as well as live birds and other animals. Item (4) separately bars hunting, trapping, feeding, or pursuing wildlife of any kind in a park except as authorized by the director, closing off both feeding and pursuit as workarounds to the item (3) ban.

The two items sit alongside a ban on discharging a firearm, air rifle, air gun, slingshot, bow and arrow, spear gun, or other projectile-launching instrument in a park unless it is required for a department-organized or department-sponsored activity, item (5), which reinforces the wildlife-protection purpose of the subsection by cutting off the tools most commonly used to harm animals on park grounds. The subsection's closing sentence supplies the shared consequence: violation is a noncriminal offense, and is cause for a warning, immediate ejection from the park, or issuance of a trespass warning by a law enforcement officer, with ejection and a warning both available together if warranted.

Because the rule is written into the parks chapter, it protects wildlife specifically on park grounds; the general fishing exception elsewhere in the same section, item (18), separately allows fishing where not prohibited, in compliance with state fishing rules, so fishing is carved out from this wildlife-harm ban.