Pickens County, SC Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 4-10(f) of the Pickens County animal ordinance, part of the county's "owning or keeping vicious animal" section, flatly prohibits keeping any "nondomesticated species of carnivores" in the county unless one of three specific authorizations applies. The first path is a permit issued directly by the county animal control department. The second is a federal license: a class A, B, or C license issued by the United States Department of Agriculture under 7 U.S.C. §§ 2131 to 2157 and 7 CFR 2.17, 2.51, 371.2(g), which covers breeders, dealers, exhibitors, and auction sale operators. The third path is authorization "as otherwise provided by state law," and the section names South Carolina's own wild-animal statute, S.C. Code 1976 § 50-11-2400, as an example. Absent one of those three, keeping a nondomesticated carnivore, such as a big cat, wolf, bear, or similar meat-eating wild species, anywhere in unincorporated Pickens County is unlawful.

The section carves out institutional keepers rather than private owners: § 4-10(g) exempts an animal shelter, a publicly owned zoological park, a veterinary hospital, a public laboratory, a publicly owned educational facility, a facility operated for scientific purposes, and "all governmental entities" from the permit requirement entirely. A private resident who wants to keep, say, a wolf-dog hybrid or an exotic cat classified as a nondomesticated carnivore has to secure the county animal control permit or qualify under one of the federal or state license categories; there is no private-owner exemption in the text.