Waukegan, IL Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 4-2(a) bars keeping "any cattle, sheep, goat, horse, mule, swine, fowl or other livestock or wild animal at any place or upon any premises in the city," and Sec. 4-1 defines "wild animals" as "any species of undomesticated animals not customarily regarded as suited to live within an abode used for human occupancy," expressly noting that livestock doesn't count as wild for this purpose. That definition sweeps in exotic pets like big cats, primates, alligators, and dangerous reptiles regardless of whether the animal was captive-bred, because the test is whether the species is customarily suited to live in a home, not how the individual animal was raised.

A separate provision, Sec. 4-6, specifically bans owning or harboring any poisonous or dangerous snake in the city, layering an added prohibition on top of the general wild-animal ban for that category. Subsection (b) of Sec. 4-2 declares any wild animal kept in violation a public nuisance, and subsection (d) authorizes an animal control officer or law enforcement officer to obtain the legal process needed to enter a building and remove the animal, taking it to the animal impounding facility or a licensed veterinarian and leaving written notice if the owner is absent.

Because keeping a wild animal is itself the violation, no permit or size exception rescues an owner, unlike jurisdictions that allow permitted exotic-animal exhibitors; Waukegan's ordinance carves out only city-owned police or working animals under subsection (c).