Margate, FL Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 6-61(a) prohibits a named list of dangerous animals from the city. The list covers chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, baboons and macaques, along with lions, tigers, jaguars, leopards, cougars, bobcats, bears, elephants, rhinoceroses, hyaenas, coyotes, wolves, ostrich and cassowary. It also covers Komodo dragons, crocodiles, and alligators and caimans (except American alligators and spectacled caimans). Two catch-all rows close the list: all venomous snakes, amphibians or reptiles, and all snakes, amphibians or reptiles of such a size or nature as to constitute a danger to the safety of adults or children. The text sets no length or weight threshold for the second row.

The prohibition reads 'except as provided under section 6-58,' but section 6-58 sits in the reserved block 6-34 to 6-58, and the editor's note records that Ordinance No. 78-41 repealed the old permit procedure for keeping dangerous or wild animals. Subsection (b) applied the ban retrospectively to animals in the city that had not complied with the former permit sections by August 19, 1978, and subsection (c) kept the former rules alive only for animals registered on or before that date. Under those preserved rules a permit holder needed $100,000 in liability coverage and could hold no more than two dangerous animals at one location. Subsection (d) gives the city the right to enjoin the keeping of any animal in violation of the section.

Section 6-62 lists the exceptions: zoos, bona fide educational or medical institutions, museums and other places keeping live specimens for public viewing or instruction, exhibition by a circus, carnival or show, and bona fide licensed veterinary hospitals for treatment. Educational or medical institutions can also maintain dangerous or poisonous reptiles for instruction or study if the reptiles are securely confined and cared for in a manner satisfactory to the director of public health.