Milton, WI Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 6-172 of the Milton Code of Ordinances is a flat prohibition: no person may keep or permit to be kept any dangerous, wild or vicious animal as a pet or otherwise inside the City of Milton. The chapter's definitions section, Sec. 6-2, spells out what falls inside the ban: a "wild or exotic animal" is any nondomestic animal, born or raised in captivity or not, or any other warm-blooded animal normally found in the wild state, while a "vicious animal" is any animal, reptile or fish that constitutes a physical threat to humans or other animals.

Only subsection (b) exceptions escape the ban, and they are narrow: guard dogs, ferrets, nonpoisonous snakes, nonconstricting snakes, rabbits and laboratory rats, and only if each was bred in captivity and has never known the wild. A raccoon, fox, wolf-hybrid, big cat, venomous reptile or constricting snake kept as a pet inside city limits violates Sec. 6-172 regardless of how it was raised. Enforcement runs through the animal-nuisance and impoundment articles of the same chapter: any Milton police officer or the city's contracted animal-control agent may seize and impound an animal under Secs.

6-131 through 6-135, and the owner must show proof of identity and, for dogs and cats, licensing and rabies vaccination before release under Sec. 6-133. This is a City of Milton ordinance and applies only inside the city limits in Rock County, Wisconsin; it does not reach the adjoining Town of Milton, which is a separate unit of government with its own board.