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

County Code § 6-21(a) makes it unlawful for any person, firm, or corporation to keep, maintain, possess, or have under their control within Spartanburg County any venomous reptile or any other wild or exotic animal, a ban the ordinance says protects public health, safety and welfare. Subsection (b) defines a wild or exotic animal broadly: anything normally confined to a zoo or found in the wild, any non-native species, or any mammal or nonvenomous reptile over 50 pounds classified as Ferae naturae, naming monkeys, raccoons, squirrels, ocelots, bobcats, wolves and hybrid wolves as examples. It excludes ordinary household pets, domestic farm animals, aquarium fish, birds and insects.

Subsection (c) exempts lawfully operated pet shops, zoological gardens, research labs, circuses, fairs, licensed schools, veterinarians treating such animals, and permitted wildlife rehabilitators, but only if the animals are kept in escape-proof quarters. Under (d), even exempt confinement must meet South Carolina Department of Natural Resources rules and federal Animal Welfare Act minimum standards, with enclosures fully secured against escape. Subsection (e) bars any such animal from a public street or sidewalk except in a fully enclosed cage; a leash and muzzle alone are not adequate restraint. Anyone who already owned a wild or exotic animal before the ordinance's effective date had 90 days under (f) to register it with County Environmental Enforcement, giving their name, the animal's type, and its location.

Separately, South Carolina's Rabies Control Act, § 47-5-50, bars selling any normally undomesticated carnivore as a pet statewide, requires that a carnivore kept and later returned to the wild not be recaptured, and imposes labeling and vaccination rules specifically for domesticated ferrets sold in the state.