Collier County, FL Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

Sec. 54-334 governs conduct on lands managed by Collier County's Parks and Recreation Department and the Conservation Collier program, defined broadly in Sec. 54-332 to include any area the County designates and manages as a preserve. Subsection (e) addresses wildlife specifically: paragraph (1) bars possessing, molesting, harming, frightening, killing, trapping, hunting, chasing, capturing, shooting at, or throwing objects at any wildlife, nest or burrow within preserve boundaries, and bars removing eggs, nests or young, or buying, selling or accepting as a gift any wildlife specimen found there, except under a special County or State permit or a valid state fishing permit; incidental collection of shells or bait fish is not covered.

Paragraph (2), the operative feeding rule, is a single flat sentence: no person shall feed or attempt to pet any wildlife. There is no exception in the text for deer, birds, raccoons or any other species, and no threshold for what counts as feeding. Paragraph (3) separately bars introducing a pet, plant or other wildlife into preserve lands through willful abandonment or negligence, closing off the release of unwanted pets as a workaround. The rule sits within Article X's broader preserve-conduct scheme (Secs. 54-331 through 54-342), which also regulates camping, hunting, boating and vehicle access on the same lands, all enforced under one penalty section.