Texas City, TX Animal Ordinances: Bird Protection (2026)

The Texas City Code of Ordinances sets aside the whole municipality in Chapter 95. Section 95.055 says the area embraced within the corporate limits of the city, meaning the improved areas of the city, municipal parks, the seawall and the Texas City Dike, is designated as a bird sanctuary. That puts the Dike fishing area and the Galveston Bay shoreline under the same rule as a backyard.

Section 95.056 is the operative prohibition. It is unlawful to trap, hunt, shoot or molest in any manner any bird or wildfowl, or to rob bird nests or wildfowl nests, within the corporate limits. The wording covers birds of every kind and includes nests, so the ban does not depend on species or on whether the bird is a pest.

Section 95.057 is the only exception, and it is a process instead of a permit. If starlings, pigeons or similar birds congregate in numbers in a particular locality and constitute a nuisance or a menace to health or property in the opinion of the county health authorities or the City Commission, either authority calls a meeting. A joint committee appointed by the City Commission and by the County Health Authorities then meets. If no satisfactory alternative is found to abate the nuisance, the birds constituting the nuisance can be destroyed, in such numbers and in such a manner as the committee deems advisable. The meeting is subject to the open meetings laws. A resident cannot start destroying pigeons on their own: the committee decides.