Jupiter, FL Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Chapter 5's definition section, Sec. 5-1, lists what Jupiter counts as a household pet: dogs, cats, birds, small rodents such as gerbils, guinea pigs, and hamsters, ferrets, rabbits, and nonvenomous reptiles and amphibians kept for companionship. The same definition carves out two categories: any animal the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission classifies as wild, and any hoofed animal, except a purebred miniature pot-bellied pig that meets the chapter's separate pig rules. That exclusion matters because Sec. 5-36 caps every lot at five household pets, and only an animal meeting the Sec.

5-1 definition counts toward, or benefits from, that allowance; an animal outside the definition is not a household pet the chapter otherwise regulates as such. The town's zoning code draws the same line for commercial and private kennels. Division 23's operating standards, Sec. 27-2568(2)(b), limit a kennel used as a principal use to raising, breeding, boarding, and grooming dogs, cats, and birds, and expressly bar farm animals such as pigs and chickens or exotic animals such as snakes from the facility. That keeps a licensed Jupiter kennel, stable, or grooming operation from housing reptiles like snakes or livestock, even though a private owner's possession of wildlife is separately controlled through state permitting by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, outside the town code.