You never know when you pass by someone’s house or apartment if they might have an unusual pet. They might have a ferret or a parrot. Most places have no issues with you having these sorts of animals, even if they don’t always make the best companions.

However, most towns and cities have rules and laws about what animals you can and can’t legally own as a pet. If you ignore these laws, you might end up dealing with some consequences you didn’t anticipate. 

Some animals can cause lawsuits if you keep them as pets, and you might have even worse situations in some instances. You might not start out thinking about what might happen if you own an animal that’s objectionable for one reason or another, but you probably should.

Let’s take some time to talk about what can happen if you keep an illegal animal as a pet.

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Loss of Animal Ownership Rights

In New York, the police once responded to a complaint and found a fully-grown tiger living in a man’s apartment. You might have someone choose to keep an exotic animal as a pet if they think they can care for the animal and it won’t harm them.

Some people make poor decisions when it comes to animals. They might think that a highly dangerous animal won’t hurt them because they have some kind of special rapport with it.

They can learn otherwise at their peril in some instances. If the police or some other authority finds out that you’re keeping an animal as a pet that you shouldn’t, though, they can take away any rights you have to own animals in the future, even fairly innocuous ones like dogs or cats.

It’s just like some former felons who now can’t own guns. If the authorities feel you’re not responsible enough because of previous poor decisions you made, they might think you should not own any animal going forward.

That might upset an animal lover. However, you should understand that when the local government prohibits the ownership of a particular animal, they probably have those rules in place for a reason.  

Imprisonment

If you own an animal or several animals that the law says you shouldn’t, you might get jail time if the police catch you. Usually, a judge won’t send you to jail if you own a single exotic animal and you have no other serious blemishes on your record. However, if you own a lot of exotic animals, and you’re keeping them in inhumane conditions, that might get you some jail time, even if the police never caught you doing anything wrong before.

Maybe you’re keeping several cages of monkeys, venomous snakes, or something else that’s illegal in your town or city. Perhaps you’re breeding or selling them.

That’s probably going to get you some jail time, unless you take a plea deal. That kind of activity will often make a judge feel you’re a little more of a threat to the public than if you just owned one illegal animal as a pet.

Community Service

You might have to do community service as part of your plea deal if the police catch you with some exotic animals that you’re keeping as pets. You may have to pick up trash on the highway, clean up a neighborhood, serve food at a soup kitchen, or something similar.

You might have to do that for days, weeks, or even months if you kept a lot of dangerous or illegal animals. Again, it often depends whether you had priors on your record and whether you had the animals for personal gain or whether you just kept them as pets.

Fines

You may also have to pay a fine. If you kept exotic or illegal animals that you sold and from which you made a profit, then the judge might confiscate the money you made.

They will probably fine you in addition to giving you jail time or community service. They might want to send a message not just to you, but also to anyone else who might have a similar idea.

Confiscation

You can expect that the police or animal control officers will confiscate any illegal or exotic animals that you have. Maybe you loved those animals and kept them as pets, but you will likely never see them again.

You must understand that even if you feel sentimental about these animals, if you’re violating local laws by keeping them, the police or animal control won’t sympathize with you.

Someone Might Suffer an Injury or Even Die

Things like fines or animal confiscation might not sound dire. However, you may have much more serious consequences if one of your animals breaks out or you have someone visit and the animal harms them.

Consider again the situation in the New York apartment some years ago when the police encountered the tiger. Can you imagine the chaos if the animal escaped?

It’s the same if you have some kind of insect or reptile that uses venom as a weapon. If such a creature bit or stung someone, it could easily paralyze or kill them.

If you have a bunch of illegal animals in your home or on your property, and you keep them as pets, then you might feel affection or even love for them. It’s great if you have that capacity, as animals often appreciate affection.

Only some animals make good pets, though. Humans have domesticated dogs over a period of tens of thousands of years. We live with cats, even though you could argue they are not completely domesticated.

If you opt for more exotic animals, though, you’re taking an unnecessary risk. The animal might harm or even kill you. It may do the same to someone else if it gets loose.

Consider that before you buy such an animal. You have many options if you want a pet, but try to show some sense.