Leon County, FL Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 4-78 flatly prohibits any person from keeping, owning, possessing or harboring a potential rabies carrier, as defined in the animal control article, as a personal pet within the county. The only owners protected are those who obtained such an animal before June 1, 1988, and even then only if the animal is properly permitted through state or federal wildlife agencies and was not taken from the wild. Those grandfathered owners must provide adequate living quarters and confinement consistent with the species' normal needs for size, shelter, exercise area, heat, ventilation, light and safety, and must keep all areas sanitary.

The grandfather clause is not transferable to a replacement animal: if a pre-1988 wild animal is lost, stolen, given away, or dies, the owner cannot replace it with another prohibited potential rabies carrier. The county's rabies-carrier definition covers species commonly recognized as rabies vectors, and Sec. 4-77(h) separately lists raccoons, foxes, skunks, bats, and bobcats as examples of wild species requiring an immediate bite report to the department of health. The ban does not reach properly licensed or permitted museums, wildlife rehabilitators, zoological parks, or research facilities, since those institutions operate under separate state and federal wildlife permitting rather than as private pet keeping. Owners of a grandfathered animal must be able to prove the acquisition date and the animal's source if the division of animal control asks.