You can't keep a cougar or a tiger as a pet in Marysville, Michigan, USA

I think it's great that a city (I think we can call it a city) with about 9,600 residents can make a law (an ordinance in the USA) which bans cougars and tigers as pets. They've also banned chickens and coyotes as pets but it is the cougars and tigers which interest me more. 

Marysville. Photo in public domain.

It's hard to imagine a cougar or a tiger being a good pet but some Americans do like to live with very exotic pets. They are not that uncommon. Perhaps the best-known celebrity to have a big cat pet is Tippi Hedren, the mother of Melanie Griffith (Hedren is still alive at the date of this post - she is 91). They kept a lion called Neil in the home. He looks truly domesticated in the photographs. But I believe that wild cats never make the same sort of pet as a domestic cat.

Back to Marysville. This town is about 65 miles north-east of Detroit. The new ordinance comes into effect in mid-August. It comes after some residents complained about neighbours owning chickens and roosters who crowed. I guess they went a bit further than banning roosters and chickens. The current ordinance bans "animals or domestic fowl within the city except dogs, cats, birds, fowl, or animals commonly classified as pets".

So, they've tightened up what is and what isn't allowed to be kept as a pet. And they have decided that chickens should be regarded as livestock and they do not belong in the city but on farms in the countryside.

Comment: I'm not sure about banning chickens as pets because I've seen some very nice relationships between kids and chickens. However, I'm certain that banning tigers and mountain lions as pets is an excellent idea. Although I would doubt that there were many tigers in their community! In fact, there must be none but it's nice to take proactive steps to prevent any possibility of that happening in the future.