New York — wild animals as pets prohibited (Env. Conserv. Law § 11-0512)

New York — wild animals as pets prohibited (Env. Conserv. Law § 11-0512)

Source: New York State Senate — NY Environmental Conservation Law § 11-0512 (nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ENV/11-0512), extracted 2026-07-23. First-hand state-statute text; C1 substring-verified against pdf-raw/exotic-legality/ny_env_11_0512.txt.

New York prohibits keeping wild animals as pets. Per ECL § 11-0512, titled "Possession, sale, barter, transfer, exchange and import of wild animals as pets prohibited," it "shall be prohibited for any person to: ... knowingly possess, harbor, sell, barter, transfer, exchange or import any wild animal for use as a pet in New York state." The statute sits in the "Environmental Conservation (ENV) CHAPTER 43-B, ARTICLE 11, TITLE 5."

The ban is near-total: it covers possession, harboring, sale, barter, transfer, exchange and import of any wild animal for pet use, with narrow exceptions for zoological facilities, licensed exhibitors/research facilities, veterinarians, rehabilitators, and a person paralyzed from the neck down who possesses "a new world monkey trained to perform tasks for its owner." Pre-existing pet wild animals may be retained only under a biennial department license.

Local governments may go stricter: "Nothing contained in this section shall prevent any city, town or county from enacting more restrictive provisions governing the possession of wild animals for use as pets." Violations carry "a penalty of not more than five hundred dollars for the first offense and not more than one thousand dollars for a second and subsequent offenses."

This covers the state-level "can I keep a wild/exotic animal as a pet in New York?" question at the statute level. It does not list a positive species schedule (unlike the CA/MA/HI models); NY uses a blanket "wild animal" prohibition. CITES Appendix status of individual species is a separate federal/trade layer and is not addressed here.

Verbatim C1 claims (each a substring of the source file + this body):

1. "Possession, sale, barter, transfer, exchange and import of wild animals as pets prohibited"
2. "knowingly possess, harbor, sell, barter, transfer, exchange or import any wild animal for use as a pet in New York state"
3. "Environmental Conservation (ENV) CHAPTER 43-B, ARTICLE 11, TITLE 5"
4. "new world monkey trained to perform tasks for its owner"
5. "penalty of not more than five hundred dollars for the first offense"
6. "Nothing contained in this section shall prevent any city, town or county from enacting more restrictive provisions governing the possession of wild animals for use as pets."