Tallahassee, FL Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

Section 4-105(a) declares that feral animals which have not been spayed or neutered and vaccinated against rabies pose health and environmental risks to pets, wildlife and people, and makes it a violation for anyone to feed or harbor a feral animal. 'Feral animal' is defined in Section 4-2 as any wild cat or dog, whether born in the wild or reverted to a wild state through abandonment or lack of domestication, so the prohibition is narrower than a general wildlife-feeding ban; it does not reach deer, geese, ducks or other non-domestic wildlife, which fall outside this section.

Section 4-105(c) carves out three exceptions that effectively support trap-neuter-return colony management: feeding is lawful if the feral animal has been spayed or neutered and rabies-vaccinated, if the feeder has accepted legal responsibility for the animal and is complying with the rest of the chapter, or if the feeder is making a good-faith effort to humanely trap the animal for spay, neuter, or surrender to Animal Services. This dovetails with the community cat exception in Section 4-103(e)(5), under which an ear-tipped, sterilized community cat is exempt from the at-large rule, meaning a lawfully-managed colony can be fed without violating Section 4-105 while an unmanaged, unsterilized feral population cannot.