20 Weird Animal Laws That Might Have Gone A Little Too Far

Laws don’t get more superstitious than in French Lick, Indiana. 

In the 1930s, the town passed an ordinance requiring all owners of black cats to put bells around their necks on Friday the 13th.

This day is popularly regarded by superstition as a day of bad luck, especially for people who run into black cats.

The town’s population had high levels of triskadekaphobia, a fear of Friday the 13th. The bells around the cats’ necks would warn oncoming passersby so they could avoid running into these cats.

Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, is a staple of North American folklore. Despite a lack of scientific evidence, legislators in Skamania County, Washington, decided not to take any chances.

In June 1992, they signed a bill declaring the county a “Sasquatch Protection and Refuge Area.”

If Bigfoot is ever found in Skamania, he’d be treated as an endangered species. According to the  Skamania County Chamber of Commerce, harming the creature can earn you a year in jail and/or a $1,000 fee.

The real intent was to prevent overzealous, armed "Sasquatch hunters" from harming people wearing costumes.

In Red Wing, Minnesota, your feline’s maximum meowing time is 4 minutes and 59 seconds. At the five-minute mark, you become guilty of a misdemeanor.

The city’s Animal Control Ordinances state that “cats are not allowed to emit loud or unusual noises,” though exactly how you convince your tabby to follow that rule is entirely up to you.

The definition of “unusual noise” isn't quite clear, but this is one state where you might want to beg your pet to keep it down.

According to local police, they can technically make minimal noise, but unless they take a one-minute "break" every five minutes, neighbors can report them for a levy.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, it’s prohibited to hunt or kill a bat unless it enters your house.

It could set up shop in your garden or right outside the door, but you can’t legally do anything until it steps into your home. Vampire much?

The Department believes that bats are “very misunderstood mammals” and that their benefits in pest control, pollination, and seed dispersal outweigh the risk of spreading disease, so Texans are not allowed to hunt them.

In the Lone Star State, if you’re concerned that a bat around your house could give you rabies, you have to safely catch and transport it for laboratory testing instead of harming the flying creature.

Until the late 1960s, if your pet had the hots for a dog from the British Royal Household, you were in serious legal trouble.

The Royal Household has maintained a lineage of hounds carefully bred since the 17th century.

While the chance of a common pooch slipping past Buckingham Palace security is slim, this was technically a severe violation.

Before a dog is authorized to mate with a royal pup, experts have to assess its breed, medical history, and lineage.

It was Queen Elizabeth II’s pet project, so treating a royal pet like a neighborhood stray was considered a literal offense against the crown.

Touch a critter in Georgia at your own risk. As far as the state is concerned, all llamas are sassy, “inherently dangerous,” and unpredictable.

If one injures or kills you, the creature is protected by a statute, meaning you generally can’t sue the owners. This ruling covers all llama-related activities.

According to the Animal Legal and Historical Centre, even if an event organizer brings a llama to a party, you can’t sue if it goes wild, unless they failed to make "reasonable and prudent" efforts to ensure safety.

In the Peach State, these camelids are best admired from a distance.

By Ohio law, it’s illegal to let your horse mate within thirty feet or closer to a public street or alley.

According to the regulation, mating should be done privately to maintain decency and preserve the equine's dignity.

To maintain decorum, the owner of the stallion is responsible for taking it out of municipal corporations.

Stallions are also quite unpredictable when they get excited during mating; near a public street, they can run into traffic and cause an accident, making this statute a safety necessity.

Juneau, Alaska, gives you one more reason to pick felines over canines: they have a shot at entering cemeteries to mourn with you.

The city’s Animal Control provision expressly prohibits dogs, cows, horses, sheep, hogs, and other farm animals from coming into the municipal cemeteries, but cats aren’t mentioned in the prohibition.

So if you need your furry bestie nearby as you grieve, you’ll have to leave the hound at the door.

How did the chicken cross the road in Quitman, Georgia? It didn’t.

Section 8, subsection 1 of the Quitman Municipal Code states, “It shall be unlawful for any person owning or controlling chickens, ducks, geese, or any other domestic fowl to allow the same to run at large upon the streets or alleys of the city”.

Essentially, if your poultry crosses the road, you get a fine. If your flock roams wild, you also receive a citation.

The State of Georgia is the largest producer of chicken meat in the U.S., raising 1.3 billion broilers annually, according to Food Republic.

To maintain order, this town imposes strict restrictions on poultry rearing to curb the "free-range" chaos.

In Alaska, it’s illegal to push a live moose out of a moving airplane. The measure is so specifically absurd that it leaves you wondering who on earth tried to do it.

From 1972 to 2009, the town of Talkeetna held an annual Moose Dropping Festival. The main event involved dropping thousands of numbered moose droppings from an airplane to hit a target. 

Per The Montecito Journal, PETA misunderstood the rules and assumed live mammals were being tossed. The ensuing uproar forced the government to explicitly prohibit dropping live moose, or their droppings, from airplanes.

Alaskans still joke that the ruling doesn't technically address dropping a moose from a stationary plane.

According to the California Legislature Fish and Game Code, it’s illegal to eat a frog that has participated in frog-jumping contests.

If a competition amphibian dies or is killed, it must be destroyed immediately.

The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies notes that breaking this ruling is a misdemeanor punishable by a forfeiture of $1,000–$5,000 and/or jail time.

While it may seem odd, there are valid health reasons: competitive creatures are often kept in stressful, enclosed conditions, which makes them more likely to harbor diseases.

Plus, some are exotic species that could disrupt the local ecological balance if released.

People in the UK seem to prefer their cattle to be night owls.

According to the Metropolitan Streets Act of 1867, it’s illegal to walk a cow through certain parts of London between 10 am and 7 pm without permission.

While hilarious today, this measure was perfectly reasonable in the 1800s. Farmers moving large herds across the street caused massive traffic jams and safety risks.

The code restricted herd transport to low-traffic hours, keeping the London streets safe and "sane" while avoiding potential sanctions for the owners.

Kentucky Legislature has an oddly specific measure against colouring baby chicks, ducklings, and rabbits.

Offenders who try to dye the fur or feathers of these infant creatures get slapped with a deserved penalty of up to $500. Interestingly, you’re allowed to colour adult pets, but if you do that, you can never sell them.

Odd as it may seem, WBKR explains that some people had the morbid idea to take the Easter egg tradition one step further by dyeing the fowl and rabbits.

Colouring the young beasts broke cruelty statutes, so it was outlawed, while dyeing older quadrupeds was discouraged by making them unsellable.

If you took a picture of a rabbit in Wyoming in January 1921, you could’ve gotten locked up for it.

In 1921, Wyoming created a law banning residents from photographing rabbits and other game animals from January to April without a special permit.

At the time, the rationale was to protect wildlife from disturbance during vulnerable months.

In 1969, the law was amended to apply only to commercial photographers. Over a hundred years later, the law is no longer actively enforced.

If you ever take your pet bird to California, it might be best to hold on tight because if it gets lost, you can’t whistle to find it! Historically, it’s illegal to whistle for a lost bird before 7 am in the Golden State.

This strange law has its origin in the mines. In the 1800s, California had hundreds of thousands of miners seeking a fortune during the Gold Rush, and many used canaries to detect toxic gases.

The mine ran a tight schedule, so the people underground were strict about any noise interrupting the precious little sleep they could get. If anyone lost their canary during rest hours, they’d have to wait until work resumed at 7 am to whistle for it.

Noise ordinances are more modern these days, but loud noise before 7 am is still prohibited.

In 2008, NBC News reported that Saudi religious police had effectively restricted men from walking pets in Riyadh. The reason?

It was allegedly becoming a cheeky flirting tactic. The women of the city seemed to like these furry companions so much that they’d stop to pet them.

To maintain "romantic order," the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice also outlawed the sale of pets.

While the official penalty was the confiscation of the creature, many residents reportedly refused to hand over their canines.

Today, with cultural shifts, the ordinance isn't strictly enforced, and the city even boasts pet cafes and allows small beasts on public transport.

If you woke up today looking to build a pigsty in the UK, your front yard isn’t an option unless you have a high garden wall.

The Town Police Clauses Act of 1847 states that anyone who keeps a pigsty at the front of a street, or keeps livestock near a street so as to be a “common nuisance,” is liable for citations.
 
Legislators in the 1800s figured passersby would be understandably disgusted by the sight and smell of pigs, so they had to be kept out of sight.

Interestingly, the decree is still in effect today, so if you're planning on getting a farm pet, check your fence height first.

If your dog is taller than 14 inches, China won’t have it. The country has a blanket ban on existing or potential “ferocious dogs”, including pit bulls and German shepherds.

This includes all dog breeds likely to reach 14 inches or taller at adulthood. In June 2009, at the height of the one-child policy, when many Chinese families had turned to pets for companionship, Independent reported that the government clamped down on the dog population.

Families were instructed to cull all but one of their pets, or any extra dogs would be killed by a “dog-beating” patrol.

A decade later, Forbes reported that some regions specifically banned dogs over 14 inches tall, giving the families three days to move them out of the city or risk prosecution.

If a dog exceeds the height limit, it will be confiscated, or the family will be granted a three-day allowance to move it out of the region.

In Alabama, it’s illegal to put ice cream in your back pocket, especially around horses.

According to Alabama Injury Lawyers, horse thieves in the nineties would put ice-cream cones in their back pockets to lure horses far enough from their carriages that they could steal them without having to touch the animals at the scene of the theft.

Technically, the law is still in effect because no one ever repealed it, but the state police isn’t actively searching people's pockets for cones anymore.

In April 2005, the council of Turin, Italy, passed a provision requiring dog owners to walk their pets at least three times daily or face a citation of up to €500, per NBC News.

The regulation ensures animal welfare, keeping them fit and socially active. To further safeguard Italian fauna, owners are also prohibited from dyeing their fur or docking their tails.

Wondering how the government tracks your walking habits? Every neighborhood reportedly has vigilant "tipsters."

For more serious offenses, like abandonment or torture, penalties can soar up to €10,000, and owners can even face jail time.