The state will issue permits for animals deemed potentially dangerous to individuals or organizations that can prove they have the experience and knowledge to handle such animals as well as the facilities to keep the animals healthy and the public safe. The state outright bans residents from owning as pets “potentially dangerous species,” a category that includes primates, bears, nondomestic cats including lions and tigers, venomous snakes and alligators - generally anything that can maim or kill you. Pet stores will issue 20-day temporary permits with owners required to file for annual “hobby” permits. The state requires permits for what it deems exotic animals: mammals like ferrets, kinkajous (a rainforest cousin to the raccoon), hedgehogs and chinchillas an array of parrots and other birds reptiles like pythons, boas and gecko and certain frogs, including the colorful poison dart frogs - which are not poisonous. Throughout New Jersey, there are 5,264 hobby permits. The DEP’s Division of Fish and Wildlife oversees exotic animal permits. More than 450 people in Ocean County and 485 in Monmouth County have hobby permits for exotic animals, Considine said.
“Then they’re not so cute and cuddly anymore. “They’re cute and cuddly until they mature,” said John Bergmann, facility director of Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey, where some of the exotic pets end up. A bobcat mix isn’t considered an exotic pet under state law.īut there are plenty of pet owners who are looking for exotic pets - including those who don’t always realize what happens when their small, wild animals grow up. That’s because his owner, Ginny Fine of Stafford, produced documents showing the 3-year-old feline actually is a cross between a bobcat and a Maine coon cat, said Bob Considine, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. As quirky as he might seem as a pet, state laws see Rocky no differently than your run-of-the-mill kitty cat.īut even with ancestors that lived in wild, the 38-pound Rocky doesn’t require a state permit. But Rocky, a bobcat hybrid that made headlines after being on the lam in Stafford last week, isn’t one of them. More than 5,000 people in New Jersey - including about 1,000 at the Shore - are registered owners of exotic pets, ranging from ferrets and parrots to chinchillas and poison dart frogs.
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