Yonkers, NY Animal Ordinances: Exotic Pets (2026)

Chapter 65, Article II, adopted in 2020, opens with legislative findings that displays bringing wild or exotic animals into close contact with the public create hazards to safety and to the animals themselves, citing documented cases of animals escaping and attacking people. Section 65-29 defines DISPLAY broadly to include any exhibition, act, circus, public show, trade show, photo opportunity, carnival, ride, parade, race or performance, and lists sixteen categories of covered animals, including nonhuman primates, felids other than ordinary domesticated cats, canids such as wolves, ursids, elephants, marine animals, crocodilians, marsupials, snakes and reptiles, ungulates, hyenas, mustelids, procyonids, edentates, viverrids, camels and cetaceans.

Section 65-30 then prohibits both a wild-or-exotic-animal display and a rodeo on any property in Yonkers in which the City has a property interest, which reaches City parks and other municipal land but not privately owned venues. Section 65-31 exempts educational or therapeutic displays sponsored by the Lenoir Preserve or by institutions accredited by the American Zoological Association or the Association of Sanctuaries, and exempts displays limited to domesticated species such as cats, dogs, horses, cows, sheep or llamas, other than fights or rodeos. Importantly, the chapter regulates public displays on City-interest property, not private possession of an exotic animal in someone's home.