Anaheim, CA Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

130 addresses cats specifically under the city's public-nuisance chapter rather than through licensing. 1301 makes it unlawful to feed a feral cat, stray cat, or cat community on public property unless the person is a registered "cat caregiver" who has first obtained permission from the Community Preservation Manager. On private property the feeding itself is not banned, but it becomes unlawful once it creates harmful health or sanitation conditions, destroys property, attracts coyotes, rats or other vermin, or otherwise disturbs neighbors with noise or nuisance conditions.

The section builds in a Trap-Neuter-Return framework: a cat caregiver is defined as someone who, following the TNR method, provides food, water, shelter or medical care to feral or stray cats, and TNR itself is defined as humanely trapping, spaying or neutering, and vaccinating cats against rabies before returning them to their colony (or to their owner, for a reunited stray). The code distinguishes a "feral cat" (never socialized to humans, offspring of stray or feral cats, generally unadoptable) from a "stray cat" (a lost or abandoned pet that remains tame enough to be reunited or adopted) and a "cat community" (a group of stray or feral cats sharing a territory with available food and shelter).

This framework was most recently amended by Ordinance 6620, adopted January 13, 2026, updating the caregiver permission structure. Anaheim has no separate cat licensing requirement comparable to its dog licensing program, and no at-large restriction specific to cats appears in the code; the feeding-based nuisance rule is the operative local cat regulation.