Clay, NY Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 230-20A(3)(a) of the Town Code draws a hard line between small caged or tanked animals and exotic or wild animals kept loose in a home. The subsection allows an unlimited number of 'other kinds of domestic animals' as long as they are consistently kept within appropriate containers such as aquariums or birdcages, listing tropical fish, exotic birds, ferrets, gerbils and hamsters as illustrative examples. It then flatly states that no exotic animals harbored outside of such containers, and no farm animals, may be harbored or maintained as pets.

The Town's zoning definitions at § 230-11C describe exotic or wild animals as indigenous or nonindigenous species not acclimated to regular human contact, giving monkeys, lions, tigers, wolves, alligators and boa constrictors as large-animal examples and falcons, hawks, squirrels and raccoons as small-animal examples, and note that some, like ferrets, may require special New York State licensing even when kept as pets. Outside the RA-100 Zone District, where § 230-20A(3)(b) removes all animal-type restrictions on lots of five acres or more, a resident who wants to keep an exotic animal loose in a conforming residential district has no path to do so under this section; § 230-20A(3)(c) only opens a ZBA special-permit route for nonconforming residential or farm land uses, not a general exotic-pet permit.