Queen Anne's County, MD Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 9-25 sits in Chapter 9 (Animal Control), which the County Commissioners adopted on 4-9-2024 by Ord. No. 24-08, replacing the chapter adopted in 2014. It has two parts. Part A is the restriction: a person cannot keep a wild animal in Queen Anne's County unless a permit to keep the animal has been issued by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, if required. The section does not restate what the State requires, and this page does not either. Part B is the County's own duty: a wild animal kept in the County must be registered with the Animal Control Office of Queen Anne's County, in accordance with regulations issued by the Commission, the Animal Control Commission established in § 9-3.

What counts as wild is set by definition in § 9-1. A WILD ANIMAL is an animal that is not included in the definition of domesticated livestock, domestic animal or livestock, and the term includes any offspring of wild animals crossbred with domestic animals. The DOMESTIC ANIMAL definition names a bird, cat, dog, fish, hamster, ferret, mouse and reptile, plus other animals associated with the human environment, so those animals fall outside § 9-25 as the code is written. The word ANIMAL itself covers any nonhuman species, whether domestic or wild, excluding insects and plants.

Dangerous animals are handled in a separate section, § 9-20, which turns on an animal's behavior and a hearing before the Commission rather than on species. Under § 9-2, animal control functions run under the direction of the Animal Control Office of Queen Anne's County, and animal services run through the Animal Services Center. Owners of wild animals in Stevensville, Chester, Grasonville and the rest of unincorporated Queen Anne's County register with that Office, not with a town.