Laredo, TX Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

Section 6-41 of the Laredo Code of Ordinances, part of chapter 6's animal-keeping article, makes it unlawful, a nuisance and public health threat to feed and harbor wild or feral animals, except community cats, in residential areas. The same section separately bars keeping, harboring, housing or maintaining any prohibited animal within city limits; Sec. 6-1 defines prohibited animals to include coyotes, foxes, skunks, raccoons, opossums, armadillos and all other mammals that live in a natural state of undomesticated freedom, so a resident who lures such wildlife with food risks both the feeding violation and an unlawful-harboring charge.

The assistant director of the animal care services division, appointed under Sec. 6-3 and designated the city's animal control authority under Sec. 6-4, enforces the chapter. Under Sec. 6-5(b)(5), an animal control officer, code enforcement officer or police officer may issue a citation for a Sec. 6-41 violation without first impounding anything; impoundment and citation are independent remedies. Sec. 6-11 separately requires anyone who has a stray, lost or wild animal appear on their premises to report it to the animal care services division within twenty-four hours, with noncompliance punished under Sec.

1-6. The single statutory exception in Sec. 6-41 covers community cats: a resident who registers as a community cat caregiver and follows trap-neuter-return practices may lawfully feed an eartipped colony, but the exemption does not extend to deer, geese, raccoons, coyotes or any other wild or feral species. There is no permit process to lawfully feed non-cat wildlife in a Laredo residential neighborhood; the ordinance is a flat prohibition rather than a discretionary approval.