CLARIFICATION (6:15 p.m. Sept. 12): Animal Care Services has specified that the new city fines are only for cases when an animal has first been trapped and then released. It would not cover cases where people dump their own pets.
SAN ANTONIO - City Council approved a new set of fines for people caught abandoning animals in San Antonio in a 10-1 vote Thursday morning.
The vote means people caught abandoning animals in San Antonio could be fined between $500 and $2,000 for a first offense, between $1,000 and $2,000 for a second offense, and $2,000 for a third offense and beyond.
However, city staff say the fines only apply if the animal had first been trapped. Other abandonment cases, such as when people dump their own pets, are still covered under state law.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, who tried twice to delay the proposal, was the lone vote against it.
In a statement emailed to news outlets after the vote, Jones said, “it lacked the required due diligence and public engagement.”
The mayor originally had the vote withdrawn from the Sept. 4 council agenda because it stemmed from a policy proposal submitted by Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7) before Jones and the other new council members had taken office.
Alderete Gavito, Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5), and Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) side-stepped the mayor, though, and used a three-signature memo to force a vote anyway.
At Thursday’s meeting, Jones suggested delaying the vote at least another three weeks. In part, she cited concerns raised by animal advocates about a lack of clarity about who else might get caught up in the ordinance.
Speakers had used examples of nursing a bird back to health before releasing it, feeding a stray dog, or children catching and releasing frogs.
Jones also asked about getting more public input on the proposal.
Alderete Gavito’s original proposal from March 2024 concerned the unlicensed trapping and releasing of birds. Her district includes areas where peacocks and peahens roam in colorful flocks, and Animal Care Services Director Jonathan Gary said there had been issues with people trapping and releasing them.
Though the idea went through three Public Safety Committee meetings in 2024 and 2025, it was only expanded to include all animals after the final meeting in April 2025.
Alderete Gavito, though, told the mayor that city staff clarified many of the questions during the discussion and that she had already noted the need for a public education and communication effort, “so we’re good as is.”
“To clarify, you’d like no public input on this ordinance change,” Jones challenged Alderete Gavito
“There was public input on this, and we’ve heard — we’ve all received feedback from our residents about this,” the councilwoman responded. “We can’t delay on this issue any longer. Dogs are — dog and abandoning animals are a problem here."
Asked after the vote about when the idea got expanded, Gary said it was “through our conversations after those meetings, we really started talking about it.”
“And it’s when I recognized, obviously, as a new director here in San Antonio, I recognized that we needed to include more than just the peafowl,” Gary said.
Kirstin Nickell said the ordinance wouldn’t affect her as someone who traps and neuters feral cats before releasing them — something city staff say is protected within the ordinance.
But Nickell is concerned that people doing the same for stray dogs, which she thinks is crucial, will not be protected.
“The city actually discourages people from fixing street dogs. So they’re allowing generations of animals just to come into the shelter to be killed or to be killed on the streets,” Nickell said after the vote.
Gary confirmed “TNR (trap, neuter, return) for dogs is not an acceptable method right now” and that people who find a dog should contact ACS.
“Dogs, unlike cats, can pose a danger for you if you release them back out,” he said during the council discussion. “There’s potential that they pack up and can create a danger for our community.”
However, Gary told KSAT that someone who takes in a stray temporarily to give it food or water before releasing it would not violate the new ordinance.
“Obviously, we would hope that they could keep them until we can get there,“ he said. “But again... we’re talking about recklessly abandoning a dog. If you let a dog — release a dog back out in the same location that you found it, that’s not recklessly abandoning a dog.”
It’s not clear how much of a difference the new ordinance will make in preventing abandoned pets or going after those who dump them. Gary said ACS receives about 400 reports of animal abandonment each year.
However, Gary told Jones his department had about a half dozen cases they pursued successfully last year.
The mayor asked the ACS director why he had told her the ordinance would have “minimal impact” in a previous briefing.
“Very few are we actually able to file charges because it’s very difficult to catch someone in the act of doing,” Gary told her. “And so that’s why we say ‘minimum.’ It’s because the cases are few.”
The mayor’s full statement on the vote is below:
“Today, I voted “no” on the proposed change to the Abandonment ordinance, because it lacked the required due diligence and public engagement. The Animal Care Services Director acknowledged the proposed change would have a ‘minimal impact,’ and long-time animal rights community leaders clearly stated the proposed ordinance would be counterproductive and cause public confusion. I appreciate the intent of this ordinance, and I look forward to working with my fellow Council Members and Animal Care Services to ensure: we’re prioritizing public safety, our citizens understand what this policy means in practice, and we’re caring for animals while not inadvertently decreasing the number of spay and neutered animals in our community.”
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones
Power struggle
The same three council members also forced a discussion last month on how the council policy proposals advance — a fight that appears to still be playing out.
Jones has been pushing for council members to resubmit any council consideration requests (CCRs) filed before she and the other new council members were sworn in on June 18.
CCRs are one of the primary ways council members can push to create new policy. But council members rely heavily on city staff to flesh out the details of a proposal and how it will work.
It often takes several months and multiple committee meetings before they come up for a vote by the full council.
Jones wants the Governance Committee, of which she is the chairwoman, to take a look at any previous CCRs that haven’t been voted on yet.
Other council members have resisted that idea, as well as the notion that the mayor could demand that change on her own.
And Thursday’s meeting shows it could be easy for council members to go around Jones to bring the policy proposals up for a vote anyway.
Alderete Gavito called it a “tricky question” when asked whether the process was indicative of how proposals from the previous term would continue to play out.
“You know, I would love for all of us, council and mayor, to move forward together to get work done together,” Alderete Gavito said. “You know, this work was clearly done on behalf of the residents. And so we just need to go. We need to get work done.”
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