Is It Legal to Own a Jackson's Chameleon? State Guide

One fact in this animal's legal record sits oddly against the rest. Jackson's chameleon is barred from private ownership in Hawaii, and Hawaii is also the place in the United States where you are most likely to see one, because the islands have carried established feral populations for decades. The rule and the reality point in opposite directions, and the rule is not a mistake.

Where Jackson's Chameleons Stand

Hawaii Bars an Animal It Already Has

Hawaii's import rule runs inverted. Section 4-71-6.5 permits the introduction of a non-domestic animal only where that animal appears on the conditionally approved list or the restricted list, so anything on neither is prohibited by default. Jackson's chameleon appears on no Hawaii list, and the absence is the prohibition.

What makes this worth pausing on is how the population got there. In 1972 a licensed pet shop owner in Kaneohe, on the windward side of Oahu, imported several dozen chameleons from Kenya. They arrived dehydrated and in poor condition and were put outdoors to recover, which released them. Hawaii's Invasive Species Council records that as the first and only known introduction, and the subspecies has since established on all the main islands. Inter-island transport of them was not restricted until 1997.

None of that alters the rule, because the rule is not asking whether the animal is present. It is asking whether anyone may bring one in or hold one, and the list answers that question the same way whether the species is absent from the state or established in it. If anything the feral populations are the argument for keeping the answer where it is.

This is the same mechanism that bars the crested gecko in Hawaii, reached by silence rather than by naming.

Maine Lists Chameleons One at a Time

Most of Maine's reptile clearances work at family or higher rank. Geckos are cleared at infraorder. Skinks are cleared as Family Scincidae, whole. Chameleons are not.

Maine names ten chameleons individually: two Trioceros, two Chamaeleo, three Furcifer, Calumma parsonii, Rhampholeon spectrum and Rieppeleon brevicaudatus. Jackson's chameleon is one of the two Trioceros, so it is cleared, and because it is named by species rather than reached through a group, the asterisk that filters out conservation-listed species never applies to it.

The practical consequence is for anyone keeping a less common chameleon. With geckos, a keeper can reason from the family and usually be right. With chameleons in Maine, the species either appears on that list of ten or it does not, and nothing about a close relative being cleared carries across.

The captive bred origin heading over the whole reptile section applies here as it does everywhere else on that list.

The Rest Are Structural

The District of Columbia bars the animal without considering it. Section 8-1808(j)(1) prohibits wildlife with seven exceptions, and the reptile category covers non-venomous snakes, fish and turtles. No lizard appears, which is the same clause that already bars the veiled chameleon there.

New Jersey is a closed list in the strict sense: 7:25-4.2(a) bars possession of any exotic or nongame species without a permit, 4.4 names the handful exempt from that, and 4.5 sweeps everything else back in. Jackson's chameleon is not among the exempted few.

Minnesota's conditional status covers snakes, lizards and salamanders as whole categories, with nothing turning on the species being native or exotic.

What to Check Before Buying

This is a montane species that needs cool nights and high humidity, and it is among the harder chameleons to keep well, which is a bigger practical barrier for most people than any of the five restrictions above. The full jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction detail, with the rule text and the date each entry was verified, is on the Jackson's chameleon page of the exotic pet law map.

Sources & Further Reading