Taylorsville, UT Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

Section 8.09.013 sits in Chapter 8.09, 'Cruelty To Animals,' and bars killing any bird or robbing or destroying any bird's nest, egg, or young, expressed 'in violation of Utah law,' so the City's own ordinance directly criminalizes the same conduct state law reaches rather than leaving it to state enforcement alone. The same chapter backs up bird protection with related sales and display rules: § 8.09.011 bars selling, offering as a prize, or displaying baby rabbits or fowl under eight weeks old in any quantity less than six, tightens that to twenty-five during the two weeks before Easter, and separately bans artificially dyeing or coloring any animal under six months old.

Section 8.09.014 makes it unlawful for any person or business to give away a live bird, fowl, reptile, or fish as a sales premium, prize, or incentive to purchase merchandise, with an exception for animals offered alongside food or equipment for their own care, and another for species-specific hobby groups offering animals only to their own members. The broader cruelty standard in § 8.09.001 requires any owner or handler to provide adequate food, drink, care, veterinary care, grooming, and shelter to any animal in their custody, birds included, and withholding those necessities is itself a separate Title 8 violation.

Because § 8.09.013 sits among the cruelty provisions rather than the nuisance or licensing chapters, a bird-killing complaint is investigated by the City's contracted animal control division the same way any other cruelty complaint is, rather than through the Title 18 hearing process used for permit disputes.