Big Cat Laws by State After the Big Cat Public Safety Act
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On 20 December 2022 the Big Cat Public Safety Act turned the question "can I own a tiger" into a historical one. The Act amended the Lacey Act so that 16 U.S.C. 3372(e) now makes it unlawful for any person to "breed or possess" a prohibited wildlife species, and the Fish and Wildlife Service lists those species as "lion (Panthera leo), tiger (Panthera tigris), leopard (Panthera pardus), snow leopard (Uncia uncia), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), jaguar (Panthera onca), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), and cougar (Puma concolor)" and their hybrids. The exceptions are licensed exhibitors, sanctuaries, state institutions and veterinarians, and one private one: a person holding an animal "born before December 20, 2022" who registered it with the Service "not later than 180 days after December 20, 2022" and who "does not breed, acquire, or sell any prohibited wildlife species" after that date and "does not allow direct contact between the public and prohibited wildlife species". Registration closed at 11:59 p.m. on 18 June 2023. The Service's guidance says what is left: "The Act does not allow for pre-Act owners to acquire additional big cats after December 20, 2022. Only registered pre-Act big cats may be allowed to stay privately owned."
That is the first federal law to tell a private citizen which animal they may not possess. So why does a state table still matter? Three reasons. The Act does not preempt stricter state law, and the Service says so in terms: "It is your responsibility to follow all local, state, Tribal, and federal laws and regulations regarding prohibited wildlife species. Registration under the Big Cat Public Safety Act does not constitute authorization to engage in any activity prohibited by such laws and regulations." The states, not the Act, set the conditions a registered animal lives under: Texas's certificate and insurance, Kansas's bond and caging, Michigan's permit, Ohio's sterilization rule. And the cougar is a native animal across the West, so state game law reaches it on its own, and in five states the cougar's answer is not the tiger's.
The Shape of It
Every row is the tiger's and lion's answer under state law alone, before the federal bar. The right column is where the cougar differs.
| Where | The state rule for a tiger or lion | Where the cougar differs |
|---|---|---|
| California, Georgia, Hawaii, District of Columbia, New York City, New Jersey, Maine, New York, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Utah, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Alaska, Idaho | Banned, no window. The family or the species is named and no permit is written for a keeper; Idaho confines big cats to AZA-accredited facilities | Georgia's DNR lists the cougar as a native that may not be a pet 'regardless of its origin', Rhode Island puts it on its native mammal list, and Idaho treats it as big game under a Fish and Game captive license rather than as a deleterious exotic |
| Florida, Nebraska, Tennessee, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Kansas, Iowa, Washington, Oregon, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia | Banned, with a grandfather window that closed between 1980 and 2022 and lets no new animal in | Kentucky bars the cougar on its native list rather than its exotic one; Arkansas's mountain lion rule ties possession to a breeder permit the Commission will not issue; Oregon reaches it through the native holding rule, closed since 20 January 2017; Washington names 'captive-bred cougars' |
| Mississippi | Banned since 20 December 2022 by a rule that cites the Act: no new permit for the transfer or possession of any felid | None |
| Wyoming | Banned. No permit may issue for wildlife on the federal endangered and threatened list, which catches both lion subspecies and the tiger | Trophy game by statute: 'no private ownership, private importation or private possession' |
| Missouri | Tiger banned: the free pass for nonnative mammals excludes federally endangered species. Lion unclear: one subspecies is endangered and one threatened, and the rule does not say which a given lion is | Class II wildlife, held only under a breeder permit, and the approved list stops at animals obtained before 30 August 2021 |
| Texas | Permit: a certificate of registration from local animal control and $100,000 of liability insurance, and any city or county may prohibit the animal outright | None, though the cougar is also a Texas native left out of the nongame rule by name |
| Montana | Permit: a wild animal menagerie permit, inspected, capped at ten animals that must come captive bred | None. The mountain lion statute sends it to the same part, and it may not be captured from the wild |
| South Dakota, North Dakota, Indiana, Delaware | Permit: South Dakota's ten-dollar possession permit, North Dakota's category 3 license before acquisition, Indiana's Class III permit, Delaware's Individual Permit | None |
| Virginia | Permit: the exotic table restricts all Felidae, and the rule does not say whether a private keeper qualifies | None. The cougar is not on Virginia's native list, so it is an exotic there |
| Pennsylvania, Massachusetts | Permit on paper, written for facilities or for science and education | None |
| Vermont | Permit at the Commissioner's discretion: restricted by absence, and issued to a keeper only on a finding that the animal does not conflict with the regulation's purpose | None |
| Arizona | Restricted. The whole order Carnivora is restricted live wildlife with no pet route | None. The mountain lion is also Arizona game, under take rules not read here |
| Wisconsin, Nevada, Alabama, Oklahoma | Legal at state level. No rule reaches a tiger or lion, so the federal Act is the whole answer | Each reaches the cougar as a native: a harmful wild animal needing a farm license in Wisconsin, written consent of the Department in Nevada, a protected game animal in Alabama, a native cat over fifty pounds behind a breeder's license in Oklahoma |
| North Carolina | Legal at state level. No statewide rule names a big cat; counties may regulate under § 153A-131 | None |
Two States Wrote the Act Into Their Own Rules
Mississippi used to sell a personal possession permit for a felid at $300 an animal. Its Rule 8.3 now opens with the federal date:
Effective December 20, 2022, with the enacting of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, 16 U.S.C. §3370 et. seq., by the United States Congress, no new permits for the transfer or possession of members of the order Carnivora, family Felidae, or "big cats," will be issued.
The rest of the rule stays in force only for current big cat permittees, who had to register their animals with the Service by 18 June 2023. Utah's prohibited mammal table does the same by citation: its big cat row lists "lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah, snow leopard, cougar (= puma), jaguar, or any hybrid of these species; in accordance with Federal Big Cat Public Safety Act", under a heading that says personal possession will not be authorized. Wisconsin's cougar rule carries the same acknowledgment in a note, that possession "is heavily restricted federally" since the Act. Everywhere else the state rule reads as it did before December 2022, and the federal bar sits on top of it unmentioned. No federal law reached that far before: the 2003 Captive Wildlife Safety Act only reached interstate commerce, and the federal laws guide sets the two Acts side by side.
Texas Is Still a Permit State on Paper
Texas is the question people ask most, and its statute has not changed. Health and Safety Code § 822.101(4) lists "(A) a lion; (B) a tiger; (C) an ocelot; (D) a cougar" and sixteen more, § 822.103 bars keeping one without a certificate of registration from the local animal control office, § 822.107 requires liability insurance of at least $100,000 per occurrence, and § 822.116(b) lets any municipality or county prohibit the animal outright. A Texan who registered a tiger with the Service by 18 June 2023 lives under all of that, and under the Act's own conditions as well: no breeding, no new animal, no public contact. A Texan who did not register is in violation of federal law whatever the county certificate says. The Service's guidance puts it plainly: "Even if your state law allows private big cat ownership, you must have registered your big cat with the USFWS by June 18, 2023, unless another exception of the Act applies."
Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Indiana and Delaware are in the same position. Each writes a personal permit a tiger could take, Montana's menagerie permit the most detailed, with an inspection, a cap of ten animals and a rule that they come captive bred from a licensed source. None of those permits can now be used for a new big cat, because the Act removed the supply. What they still do is set the terms for an animal that was already there, and for the serval, which the Act never reached.
The Federal Endangered List Decides Two Cells
Two states bar the tiger without naming it, by pointing at 50 CFR 17.11, the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife. Wyoming's Chapter 10 would otherwise treat a big cat like any other warm-blooded exotic, under a discretionary permit, but § 11(b)(xv) says a permit "shall not be issued" for "Endangered and threatened wildlife listed in 50 CFR 17.11". The tiger is listed endangered wherever found. The lion is listed in two parts, Panthera leo leo as endangered and Panthera leo melanochaita as threatened, and because Wyoming's bar takes in threatened as well as endangered, either subspecies is caught.
Missouri's version is narrower and leaves a gap. 3 CSR 10-9.110(2) lets nonnative mammals be possessed without a permit "Except for federally-designated endangered species", which takes the tiger out of the free pass and leaves it under the general prohibition on possessing wildlife except as the rules permit. The lion is the problem: one subspecies is endangered, the other only threatened, and nothing in the rule says how a lion of unrecorded subspecies is treated. If it is inside the carve-out, it is barred like the tiger; if not, it needs only the county registration that RSMo § 578.023 requires of anyone keeping a "lion, tiger, leopard, ocelot, jaguar, cheetah, margay, mountain lion". The map records it as unclear rather than guess. Federally it makes no difference, since no new lion may be privately possessed either way.
Michigan dated its big cat window to the day. The Large Carnivore Act lets a person possess a lion, tiger, cougar or other named cat only if they owned that individual animal on the act's effective date in 2000 and applied for a local permit within 90 days, and the permit passes on only by will or descent. That is the shape the federal Act copied twenty-two years later: a registry of named animals, closed on a date, with nothing added after it.
The Cougar Is a Native Cat
The tiger and lion are exotics everywhere, so a state reaches them only through an exotic animal rule or not at all. The cougar is wildlife in most of the West and a historical native in the East, and a native cat sits under the game code. That is why the cougar's state-by-state answer parts from the tiger's in the four states that have no exotic cat rule at all.
Wisconsin frees every nonnative wild animal that is not harmful, which clears the tiger and lion, and then designates exactly one cat harmful: "Felidae. The species felis concolor commonly known as cougars." Section 169.11(1)(b) bars possessing one "unless specifically authorized to do so by the department", and the authorization is a captive wild animal farm license naming the species, with written assurance of local zoning compliance before a first license. Nevada's no-permit list clears "All felines, except mountain lions and bobcats", so the tiger needs nothing and the mountain lion, a Nevada game mammal, needs the Department's written consent under NRS 503.597, which the rule does not say it would give a private keeper. Alabama names the mountain lion by binomial among animals barred from outside the state and designates it a game animal, so keeping a live one is barred where a tiger is not. Oklahoma's 29 O.S. § 7-502(A)(3) bars possessing "Any native bear or native cat that will grow to reach the weight of fifty (50) pounds or more", and the only route is a commercial wildlife breeder's license with the cat confined to the licensed premises and no public contact; a tiger, not being native, is outside that clause and outside the exemption list's carve-out for native cats.
The pattern repeats inside the ban states. Wyoming's statute makes the mountain lion a trophy game animal and Chapter 10 § 11(a) says "There shall be no private ownership, private importation or private possession of live big or trophy game animals", a flat bar where the tiger's is a federal-list bar. Oregon's exotic cat clause reaches only felids "not indigenous to Oregon", so the cougar falls instead under OAR 635-044-0460, which bars taking one from the wild and confines any cougar acquired after 20 January 2017 to AZA, exhibitor and sanctuary facilities. Kentucky bars the cougar on its native wildlife list at 301 KAR 2:081 and the tiger on its exotic list at 2:082. Arkansas's Code 09.02(D) says "It is unlawful for any person to possess mountain lions (Puma concolor) except in compliance with Codes 09.07", and the Commission will not issue the breeder permit that section requires. Missouri makes the mountain lion Class II wildlife, held only under a Class II breeder permit, and its approved species list now stops at animals "legally obtained under a valid Class II Wildlife Breeder Permit prior to August 30, 2021". Washington's statute is the most careful, listing "lions, tigers, captive-bred cougars" in its felid entry, because a wild cougar is native wildlife under a different title.
Idaho runs the other way. The tiger and lion are deleterious exotic large felids confined to AZA-accredited facilities, while the mountain lion is Idaho big game, outside the Agriculture list entirely and held under a Fish and Game captive possession license, with an eight-foot chain link fence and a top required for a felid enclosure. Under state law a cougar is more keepable in Idaho than a tiger; under the Act, neither may be newly acquired.
Five States With No Big Cat Rule
Wisconsin, Nevada, Alabama, Oklahoma and North Carolina have no state rule reaching a tiger or lion, and before December 2022 that was a real answer: Alabama's restricted list names only its own black bear, mountain lion and bobcat, Oklahoma's exemption list clears "Cats (except native cats and bears)", Nevada clears every feline but its two natives, and North Carolina hands dangerous animals to its counties under § 153A-131. In those five the federal Act is the only law on the subject, and it says no.
That is also where the big cat and the small cat part company. The Act names eight species and their hybrids, and a serval, caracal, bobcat, lynx or ocelot is not among them, so a state with no felid rule still has no rule for a serval. The serval legal guide walks the same fifty-two jurisdictions for a thirty-pound cat the Act never reached, and the statutes overlap almost line for line: Nebraska's § 37-477 bans "any member of the families Felidae and Ursidae" and so catches both, South Dakota's possession permit covers "all nondomestic members" of Felidae at ten dollars a head, Texas lists the serval at clause (J) and the tiger at (B), and Oklahoma clears both as non-native cats. The difference is that the serval's permit can still be used.
The Takeaway
Read the Act first, because it answers the acquisition question for the whole country: no private person may obtain a tiger, lion or cougar, and the only private animals left are the ones registered by 18 June 2023. Then read the state row, because it answers everything else. It says what a registered owner in Texas must keep paying for, why a registered owner in Kansas carries $250,000 of insurance or bond, why Mississippi stopped issuing permits on the federal date and Michigan stopped in 2000, and why a cougar in Wisconsin or Oklahoma was never free when a tiger was. The map rows for the tiger and the lion, like the cougar's, shade every state under its own law and quote the sentence each answer comes from, and every one of them now sits under the same federal sentence: breed or possess, unlawful, since 20 December 2022.
Sources & Further Reading
Last reviewed 11 Oct 2026 · 5 sources
- 16 U.S.C. § 3372, Lacey Act prohibited acts, including the captive wildlife offense at (e) (Cornell Legal Information Institute)
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: What You Need to Know About the Big Cat Public Safety Act
- Tex. Health & Safety Code §§ 822.101-822.116, Dangerous Wild Animals
- 40 Miss. Admin. Code Part 2, Rule 8.3, Regulations For Animals Inherently Dangerous To Humans (official PDF)
- Wyoming Game and Fish Commission Regulation Chapter 10, Importation and Possession of Live Warm-Blooded Wildlife (official PDF)
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you own a tiger in Texas after the Big Cat Act?
Not a new one. Texas still reads as a permit state, because Health and Safety Code § 822.101(4) names the tiger as a dangerous wild animal and § 822.103 lets a person keep one with a certificate of registration from local animal control and $100,000 of liability insurance. But 16 U.S.C. 3372(e) makes it unlawful for any person to breed or possess a tiger unless an exception applies, and the only private exception is an animal born before 20 December 2022 and registered with the Fish and Wildlife Service by 18 June 2023. A Texan who registered keeps the certificate, the insurance and the cat. Nobody in Texas may acquire another.
Is it legal to own a tiger in the US?
Only if you already did. The Big Cat Public Safety Act, enacted 20 December 2022, bars breeding or possessing a tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, clouded leopard, jaguar, cheetah or cougar, or any hybrid of them, outside licensed exhibitors, sanctuaries, state institutions and veterinarians. A private owner could keep an animal held before that date by registering it with the Fish and Wildlife Service within 180 days, and that window closed on 18 June 2023. Registered owners may not breed, acquire or sell a big cat, and may not allow public contact with it.
What happens to big cats owned before the Act?
They stay with their owners for life if they were registered by 18 June 2023. The Service's guidance says that only registered pre-Act big cats may stay privately owned, that a death, a move or a change in how breeding and public contact are prevented must be reported within 10 days, and that an unregistered animal places its owner in violation of the law unless another exception applies. State conditions continue on top: Texas's certificate and insurance, Kansas's $250,000 of insurance or bond, Michigan's local permit, Ohio's sterilization and caging rules.
Can you own a cougar or mountain lion as a pet?
No new cougar may be acquired privately anywhere in the country, because Puma concolor is a prohibited wildlife species under the Act. The state rules differ from the tiger's because the cougar is native: Wisconsin designates it a harmful wild animal needing a captive wild animal farm license, Oklahoma puts a native cat over fifty pounds behind a commercial wildlife breeder's license, Alabama lists it as a game animal, Wyoming calls it trophy game and bars private ownership outright, and Oregon confines any cougar acquired after 20 January 2017 to accredited, exhibitor and sanctuary facilities.
Does the Big Cat Public Safety Act apply to servals, bobcats and lynx?
No. The prohibited wildlife species are the lion, tiger, leopard, snow leopard, clouded leopard, jaguar, cheetah and cougar, with their hybrids. A serval, caracal, bobcat, lynx or ocelot is outside the Act and is decided entirely by state law, which is why the serval is a permit animal in Texas and South Dakota and a banned one in twenty states.
Can zoos and sanctuaries still keep big cats, and is cub petting legal?
Licensed exhibitors keep their exception only if they allow no direct public contact with a big cat and keep the animal at least 15 feet from the public during exhibition unless a permanent barrier prevents contact. A sanctuary qualifies only if it does not commercially trade in big cats, does not breed them, allows no direct public contact and does not display them off site. Cub petting fails both tests, which is what the Act was written to end.
Which states had no big cat law before the Act?
Five have no state rule reaching a tiger or lion even now: Wisconsin, Nevada, Alabama, Oklahoma and North Carolina. In each the federal Act is the whole answer. Only North Carolina is also silent on the cougar; the other four reach it as a native animal.
Is it legal to own a lion?
The lion gets the tiger's answer everywhere, with one wrinkle. 50 CFR 17.11 lists Panthera leo leo as endangered and Panthera leo melanochaita as threatened. Wyoming bars a permit for anything on the federal list, threatened or endangered, so both are caught. Missouri's exemption for nonnative mammals carves out only federally endangered species, and the rule does not say how a lion of unrecorded subspecies is treated, so that cell is unclear. Federally, no new lion may be privately possessed in any case.
Written by Michael Ryan
Mike keeps two rescued bearded dragons, Dex and Cera, and writes the care guides on BeastlyFacts from his own research and mistakes. He is not a veterinarian.
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