Lawton, OK Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 5-1-111(A) defines a wild or exotic animal broadly as one not normally domestic and normally found in the wild, or one the Oklahoma State Department of Health hasn't assigned an established rabies quarantine period, naming lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, wolves, alligators, crocodiles, apes, elephants, rhinoceroses, bears, every form of poisonous snake, lynxes, raccoons, skunks, monkeys, prairie dogs and bats as examples, plus any hybrid of those animals. Subsection B makes it unlawful to keep or harbor any such animal within city limits as a pet, or for display or exhibition whether the keeper charges admission or not, and this prohibition applies regardless of whether the animal is confined or how it's housed.

Subsection C separately bars keeping large reptiles, meaning snakes or lizards capable of exceeding forty pounds at adult size, on any lot or in any structure, closing a gap that might otherwise let a giant constrictor in through the "not normally domestic" test. Two carve-outs keep the ban from reaching legitimate institutions and legitimate rescue work: subsection D exempts zoological parks and zoos, performing-animal exhibitions, circuses, and educational or medical institutions outright, while subsection B's own exception clause defers to the state wildlife department's licensing of wildlife rehabilitators, so a state-licensed rehabber may temporarily hold a wild animal for care that a private resident could not legally keep as a pet.