§ 14-11. Animal care.

(a)

No owner shall fail to provide their animals with sufficient good and wholesome food and water, proper shelter and protection from the weather, veterinary care when needed to prevent suffering, and with human [humane] care and treatment.

(b)

No person shall beat, cruelly ill-treat, torment, overload, overwork or otherwise abuse an animal, or cause, instigate or permit any dogfight, cockfight, or other combat between animals, or between animals and humans.

(c)

No owner of an animal shall abandon such animal.

(d)

Reserved.

(e)

Any person who, as the operator of a motor vehicle, strikes a domestic animal, shall stop at once and shall immediately report such injury or death to the animal's owner. If the owner cannot be ascertained and located, such operator shall at once report the accident to the police department or to the humane society.

(f)

No person shall expose any poisonous substances, whether mixed with food or not, so that such substances shall be liable to be eaten by any animal, provided that it shall not be unlawful for a person to expose on his own property, poisons designed for the purpose of rodent or pest extermination. This subsection shall not prohibit health department personnel or licensed pest control operators from providing rodent or pest control services.

(g)

No person except a peace officer, or health or humane officer in the pursuit of his or her duties, shall trap, hunt, shoot, or attempt to shoot or molest, any bird, wild fowl or animal or disturb any bird's nest or bird's eggs, except for hunting with a bow and arrow or crossbow as permitted by section 66-4. However, Canadian goose control activities undertaken pursuant to and authorized by a federal permit and rodent and pest control activities conducted by licensed pest control operators or the property owner are exempt from this section.

(Code 1991, § 12.10(9); Ord. No. 711-05, § 1, 5-23-2005; Ord. No. 816-14, § 1, 1-27-2014; Ord. No. 837-16, § 3, 2-8-2016)