Viral Map Claiming it’s Legal to Own a Kangaroo in Wisconsin is True… Kind Of

As you were perusing social media yesterday and today, getting flooded with election maps and results, a goofy map may have caught your eye about kangaroo ownership in the US.

Yes, it's totally silly, but it's a nice, light-hearted thing to come across amidst all of this political mess.

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Viral Map Shows Where You Can and Can't Legally Own a Kangaroo

This map has been going viral, I've seen it twice in the past 12 hours or so, and on it you'll notice that it claims Wisconsin is a state where you can legally own a kangaroo and you also don't need a permit!

According to the viral map, only two other states have the same rules as Wisconsin, many others allow the ownership of a kangaroo but you need a permit, and in most states, it's illegal to own a kangaroo.

While I was looking into this more, I found out that this map has made the rounds around election time for the past few years!

Is the map actually accurate, though?

You Can Own a Kangaroo in Wisconsin, But...

I did not look into whether or not every state's depiction on the map was accurate, I only looked into Wisconsin.

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Based on my research, the map is... kind of accurate.

Again, the claim is that you can legally own a kangaroo in Wisconsin without a permit. A legal blog called Lowering the Bar really dug into this and found some interesting stuff that I'll summarize for you.

Technically, there is no state law that says you can't own a kangaroo. However, Lowering the Bar found in section 169.04: “'No person may possess any live wild animal unless the person holds a license [to do so] under this chapter'".

But there's an exception, which says that the law doesn't apply to '“live nonnative wild animals' that aren’t endangered or threatened species". But then there's an exception that says it's NOT legal to own "harmful wild animals".

I know, we keep going back and forth here but stay with me. The Wisconsin DNR defines "harmful wild animals" as cougars, bears, wild and feral swine, wolf-dog hybrids, and swans.

So kangaroos are all good!

Not so fast, though. Yes, it may appear to truly be legal to own a kangaroo in Wisconsin, but is it true that you don't need a permit? This is where the 'kind of' comes into play.

Local governments are able to dictate whether or not you can own a kangaroo, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One of the towns that has a ban on owning any exotic animal, including kangaroos, is Janesville. Sorry to anyone in Janesville who was really hoping to get a pet kangaroo.