New Hanover County, NC Noise Ordinances: Barking Dogs (2026)

Sec. 23-37, titled Animals, is the county's noise-based answer to chronic barking: it targets frequent or habitual howling, yelping or barking, not a single bark or momentary noise. An owner, keeper or anyone who harbors the animal, meaning shelters or cares for it even without ownership, can be cited if the noise is loud and produces a seriously annoying disturbance to a specific person or to the neighborhood generally. The section cross-references Chapter 5, Animals, which separately covers licensing and vicious-dog designations, but Sec. 23-37 itself is enforced as a noise violation under Article II of Chapter 23 rather than through the county's animal control division.

Because it sits in the noise article, the county still relies on witness complaints of frequency and disturbance rather than a sound-level reading, since barking is not amenable to the A-weighted meter test built for continuous noise sources under Sec. 23-32. Sec. 23-39's owner-responsibility provision extends here too: once the sheriff's department or county attorney's office gives an owner written notice of a prior citation for the animal, later violations expose the owner to civil penalties even for barking that happens while the owner is away, though the owner does not face criminal liability for a tenant's animal.

The provision applies only in unincorporated New Hanover County; Wilmington, Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Wrightsville Beach handle nuisance-animal noise under their own municipal codes.