West Des Moines, IA Animal Ordinances: Wildlife Feeding (2026)

Section 5-3-20 of the West Des Moines City Code, titled Community Cats, governs free-roaming cats that the City manages under a Trap-Neuter-Return program. The default rule requires an unowned cat to be returned to the location where it was trapped unless it is sick or injured, or unless the property owner has asked the City to remove it and the Public Services Director or a designee has declared it a nuisance. Subsection B is the feeding restriction itself: feeding a community cat is prohibited within two hundred feet of City property or school district property, a buffer aimed at keeping colonies away from parks, municipal buildings and schools.

Subsection A backs that buffer with a consequence for cats that do create problems: any community cat the Public Services Director or a designee determines to be a nuisance is captured and loses its eligibility to continue in the Trap-Neuter-Return program, meaning it will not simply be returned to its outdoor colony. Subsection C shields the City from liability, stating expressly that West Des Moines has no liability for a community cat or its disposition once it is captured. Because the feeding restriction sits in Chapter 3 of Title 5, Health and Safety Regulations, a violation carries the same general enforcement path as the rest of the animal chapter: it is a simple misdemeanor that officers may instead pursue as a municipal infraction under Section 5-3-23.