Ada County, ID Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

Under 5-7-2, "harboring" means allowing an animal to be lodged, fed, or sheltered on your property for 24 consecutive hours (or one hour a day for three days), which makes you its "owner" and responsible for it. Section 5-7-9 makes it unlawful to take a stray animal into your possession without notifying the Animal Control Agency at once, and the animal must be surrendered on demand - though trap-neuter-return of free-roaming cats is exempt. The county animal code does not comprehensively regulate feeding of deer, elk, or other wildlife; that falls to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and property owners who merely allow native wildlife to enter their land are not treated as "harboring" prohibited animals (5-7-4(C)(6)).