Winter Haven, FL Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Section 21-69(d) of the Unified Land Development Code, part of the City's broader "Animal limitations" provisions in Section 21-69, prohibits any household or business from breeding or maintaining a wild animal or a poisonous reptile that poses a threat to human safety. The prohibition is written broadly by design: it does not list specific banned species the way some cities do, instead turning on whether the animal is wild and whether it poses a safety threat, which puts the judgment call in the hands of code enforcement and, ultimately, the courts if a citation is contested.

The section carves out an explicit set of exemptions rather than leaving the ban absolute. Animal shelters, medical or scientific research facilities, pet shops and zoos may keep such animals, and the code adds a catch-all for "other locations where the showing or maintenance of such animals is a permitted use under the provisions of this Code," tying the exemption back to whatever the Table of Land Uses in the Unified Land Development Code separately authorizes for that property. In practice, this means an ordinary residential or commercial property cannot keep a venomous snake or a wild predator as a pet, but a licensed pet shop, a wildlife rehabilitation facility operating as a permitted zoo/animal-display use, or a university research lab can, because those categories fall inside the section's own exceptions rather than outside the general prohibition.