Olympia, WA Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

The City of Olympia, Thurston County, Washington, regulates feeding animals through Chapter 12.60, Park Regulations, and the rule applies inside parks. Section 12.60.040 of the Olympia Municipal Code has two halves. The first bars, in any manner, purposely teasing, annoying, disturbing, harassing, catching, injuring or killing, or throwing anything at or striking, any animal, bird, fowl or fish within a park. The second bars feeding any fowl, fish or animal within any park.

The wording is broad on the species side: fowl, fish and animal cover ducks and geese at a pond, fish in a park water feature, squirrels and any other creature on park grounds. Tossing bread to ducks is feeding a fowl; throwing a stone at one is a separate prohibited act under the same sentence. The text names no exception for food a park visitor considers harmless, and it contains no list of approved feeds.

Enforcement is stated in § 12.60.001, which authorizes the Park Ranger to enforce the chapter, including the issuance of notices of infraction. Penalties come from § 12.60.300(A): unless stated otherwise it is a civil infraction to violate any term of the chapter, each day is a separate infraction, and the monetary penalty is Class 3 ($50) for a first offense, Class 2 ($125) for a second offense arising out of the same facts, and Class 1 ($250) for a third, not including statutory assessments. The section also refers readers to OMC Chapter 4.44, Uniform Civil Enforcement.

The scope matters. Section 12.60.040 speaks only of conduct within a park. Chapter 12.60 also bars fireworks in City parks, smoking or vaping in parks and on trails, and failure to comply with posted signs, which sit in separate sections of the same chapter.