Middleton, WI Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

03(18)(a) forbids anyone from keeping, harboring, possessing, or maintaining a poisonous reptile, other than a rear-fanged snake, any other dangerous or carnivorous wild animal, insect, or reptile, or any species with wild, vicious, or dangerous propensities, anywhere in the City of Middleton. The ordinance lists fifteen specific categories that automatically qualify, including nonhuman primates and prosimians, wild felids other than domesticated cats, wild canids such as wolves, coyotes, and foxes, prairie dogs, elephants, crocodilians, marsupials other than sugar gliders, hoofed animals over three hundred pounds, hyenas, mustelids other than ferrets, raccoons and coatis, anteaters and armadillos, mongooses and civets, reptiles over ten feet long such as boa constrictors and pythons, and venomous reptiles other than rear-fanged snakes.

Subsection (b) exempts animals held under a valid state license issued under Wis. Stat. Chapters 169 or 95, animals in a veterinarian's care, accredited public zoos and aquariums, licensed circuses, animals kept under Department of Natural Resources authorization, and traditionally domesticated animals used for a permitted special event like a petting zoo or pony ride. 03(7) and Wis. 23, including seizing an animal or seeking an injunction when it poses an imminent threat, and the property may be charged for the cost of that action under Wis.

0627. Subsection (d) gives a would-be owner a path to a case-by-case exemption: petition the Common Council on a City Clerk form with a $30 fee per animal, available only for constricting snakes over ten feet or species the Council finds do not commonly show wild, vicious, or dangerous propensities despite falling in a listed family.