Washington DC Bans Wild Animals as Pets

D.C. Official Code § 8-1808(j)(1) prohibits any person from importing into the District, possessing, displaying, selling, trading, or giving as a household pet any living member of the animal kingdom, except a narrow enumerated list. That list covers domestic dogs (no wolf, coyote, or jackal hybrids), domestic cats (no ocelot or margay hybrids), domesticated rodents and rabbits, captive-bred common cage birds including chickens, non-venomous snakes, fish and turtles traditionally kept in the home, ferrets, and permitted racing pigeons. Everything else, primates, big cats, venomous reptiles, and other exotics, is banned. The Department of Health's Animal Care and Control program enforces the chapter, with violations handled as civil infractions.

Keeping a prohibited exotic animal is a civil infraction enforced by DC's Animal Care and Control program; the animal may be seized and impounded, and fines are assessed under the District's civil infractions system.