I'm looking for locations in the Southeast that meet several criteria for keeping exotics one day. I was hoping the Zoochat community could help me in my search. These are the things I consider most important in order of greatest to least: 1. Not too cold in the winter, no snow if barely at all. 2. There must be some aspects of seasons with spring growth and fall colors. 3. Exotic hoofstock and birds are permitted on property. 4. Permits are easy to acquire. Thanks for your help!
Here's the ones I'm thinking about: African Species -Grévy's Zebra -Sable Antelope -Lesser Kudu -Grant's or Soemmerring's Gazelle -Greater Flamingo -Marabou Stork -Yellow Billed Stork -Grey Crowned Crane -Blue Winged Goose Asian Species -Gaur -Barasingha -Sarus Crane -Asian Openbill -Bar Headed Goose Indonesian Species -Bearded Pig -Blue Crowned Pigeon -Nicobar Pigeon
I don't think there's a black-and-white answer to the question. For example, Wisconsin has few laws surrounding exotic animals. Many species can be kept here without permits. I think that the cold and seasons necessities are a little unnecessary, but that's just my opinion. Birds don't require permits unless they're listed on the Migratory Bird Act, native species in that state may also stir up some problems if you don't communicate with the DNR. Nearly all native mammals are going to require a DNR permit. "Pocket pets" like hedgehogs, sugar gliders, and even prairie dogs are not going to require any permits. To exhibit species to the public you'll need a USDA Class C Exhibitors License. I'm not sure how the permits work with keeping species without exhibiting them to the public. Certain towns and cities will have regulations on what species can be kept within city limits for residents. If you get your facility licensed as an educational facility or zoo, you'll probably be exempt from all of those rules as long as you don't keep your animals on a residential lot.
Thanks. Does that mean you can put on a few educational open house type activities per year or is does that fit the criteria for "educational facility". Also, this would be in the country. I updated the list. Is it easy to acquire MBTA species? I'd really like to have some Scarlet Ibis and a pair of Jabiru storks, but the MBTA is in the way so......
You need to have a certain amount of hours working with birds on the MBTA at a facility that already has their own license and birds to be able to qualify for your own. With the activities question, I'm not sure. My facility won't actually have any visitors coming to it, but since I'll be taking the animals to other places for programs I still need the Class C Exhibitors License to do them. I'm thinking that you want to have a facility similar to White Oak? I could look and see what permits they have.
Yes and I have yet to visit White Oak because I'm waiting for the 30+ elephants to come! I really wish they had a walking tour instead of what they have currently available. Taking video from a bumpy truck/bus and trying to get multiple species coverage for good quality video is difficult. The price tag for what they offer to me is a little over the top other than the Safari from the Saddle. What species are you planning for your facility?
I'll only have typical reptile, amphibian, and invertebrate species kept as pets. I'll have common pet bird species as well, alongside non-native owls and corvids. I'll have "pocket pet" mammal species too, as well as a few exotic mammal species like porcupines, opossums, wallabies, coati, etc.
Sarus Crane your search criteria describes my home state of Texas to a tee. Lots of private ranch owners keep exotic hooved animals, driving in the country in Central Texas (basically a big triangle between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio) you'll see impala, dama gazelle, blackbuck antelope, kudu, even zebra on ranches everywhere. Lots of breeders here, which would cut down on transportation costs. We get a light dusting of snow maybe every 5-7 years in the southern part of that triangle. We definitely get spring growth, but less fall color than you might want, because most of our trees are evergreen, like pines in the eastern part of the triangle, live oak and post oak in the middle and western parts. If you're out in the country, where you'd want to be anyway with hooved mammals, permitting is easy, and often unnecessary. Also land is cheap. And having been to Tanzania, I can say there are large parts of Texas that could reasonably be mistaken for East Africa.
Bongo seem to be thriving in the Southern Appalachians. I wonder if other mountain species would as well - Mountain Reedbuck, Mountain Nyala, Mountain Zebra etc.
Yes! C'mon Ethiopia... let people import Mountain Nyalas! If you can bring over dead trophies of them to the US, why not live ones?
Hopefully the humidity isn't too bad in Texas hill country. I can deal with dry heat in the summer. Its the humidity thats the worst. I lived in KS for a year. It was great and enjoyed each of the seasons except for some of the freezing winds that came through the winter! I guess I could always plant tropical plants, bamboo and grass to make the property look more appealing if I end up in TX. I know there are loads of ranches that sell exotics. How easy and affordable is it to live on a 10-30 acre plot of land there? Can a $30-40k annual income make it work?
This is sort of a simplification, but the further west you get in the Hill Country, the cheaper the land. Land close to Austin, or Fredericksburg, is super-expensive, they charge by the square foot, even for ranches. but you get further out it starts to get affordable again. I've seen land out in the western part of the Hill Country list for the low $2000s per acre, but I'd say median price is about mid $5000s. A lot of the price difference depends of water frontage. Also the further west-northwest, the lower the humidity. Junction, Texas, which is about the northwest extreme of the Hill Country, gets its highest humidity in August at around 50%. As for taxes, Texas has no state income tax, only property taxes. With an ag exemption you'd save substantially on that. For instance, if you had 100 acres of land valued at $5,000 per acre, your normal annual tax bill would be something like $11,200, but with an ag exemption you'd only pay about $230. A zoo would not qualify you for an ag exemption, but if you were breeding and selling some of your livestock every year, that would qualify you for one. You'd have a ready market for them on the hunting ranches in the area. The other tax option, if you don't want to be selling animals that will end up a trophy in someone's living room, or you don't think you can meet the ranching production intensity that is common in the area (a requirement for an ag exemption) is a Texas Wildlife Exemption. You get the same tax break a farmer or rancher would, but don't have to farm or ranch. You have to first get approved for an ag exemption to qualify for a wildlife exemption, but what you could do is spend your first few years doing some breeding, that would help generate some capital for your venture, too, while it's still small, so you still have free land available for more intensive breeding, and then once you get the ag exemption, then the wildlife exemption, you could cut back on the breeding, devote that land to more exhibits, and still keep the exemption. The catch is you'd have to make sure your land provided habitat for native species as well as your exotics, and those natives would have to have a human use, even if it's just recreation. But even butterflies are qualifying wildlife, and you could include some talk of native wildlife in your educational program. Heck, out where you would be, is part of pronghorn's historic range. You could purchase some and breed/exhibit them on your property, which would be a neat addition to your exotics. Here's some more info on that: https://bjgnapvxtx-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/96-354.pdf As far as ease of living, there are a lot of cute small towns with good services in the area, it's not like some parts of the American Southwest where you're just miles and miles and miles from anything. And you're not that far of a drive from big cities like Austin and San Antonio. You could definitely grow some more cold-hardy tropical plants, as most of the area is in USDA hardiness zone 8a, and ginger, elephant ears, canna lillies, mediterranean fan palm, even some bananas etc would all work there, as long as you watered them. But don't discount the natural scenery either. This isn't the Texas you see in Westerns (most of which weren't actually filmed in Texas), it's not dusty and tumbleweeds. It's lots of limestone hills and bluffs, with savannah-like open woodland of oak, cedar, and some mesquite. Really, when I traveled in northern Tanzania, places like Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park, Tarangire National Park, etc. really reminded me of the Texas Hill Country.
Mississippi is a great option for exotic animal husbandry, we have a climate that is agreeable to most sub tropical plants and animals, we very rarely see snow or continuous periods of temperatures below freezing. Seasonal scenery is all going to be based on what part of the state your in and what you have on your own property, we have alot of plantation pine but you can definitely still find pockets of deciduous trees. We have a very lenient regulatory relationship with the state so you really only have to worry about federal regulations, or if you have any animal that are described as "inherently dangerous" to humans you have to have liability insurance to house them, but I don't believe you have any in your list. I noticed you said humidity isn't your thing which in that case I'm afraid I wouldn't recommend anything in the deep south. However living expenses and real estate are some of the best valued in the nation with a little going a long way, generally the northern half of the state is a little cheaper with a little lower quality of living, and the southern half is a little more expensive but a good bit better. I find our state is great because we're surrounded by large cities in neighboring states that have very active exotic communities, but we don't have to go through all the regulatory requirements they do. But you readily have access to New Orleans, Memphis, and Mobile all with large communities of keepers and alot of smaller communities in the secondary cities of our neighboring states.
