This site will be continually under construction and changing as the states, counties and municipals continually change their regulations and laws. These are the current regulations for 1996 that we have received to date. If you have other information, please let us know the citations of those laws or regulations, the state and when the changes went or will go into effect by sending e-mail to lawschange@monkeymaddness.com.
There is no statewide law regulating pet primate ownership in the state of Washington. These are covered instead by city or county ordinances. The City of Seattle has a Dangerous Animals bylaw, and chimpanzees are considered "dangerous." Therefore, in Seattle it is illegal to own a chimpanzee. King County has an exotic animal ordinance which states that all nonhuman primates are banned from the county (Appendix B4). Snohomish, Pierce, Thurston, and Kitsap Counties, on the other hand, do not have dangerous or exotic animal ordinances nor regulations. With no regulations, there are no records of who owns nonhuman primates. The only way one comes under regulation is if the primate is exhibited or used commercially, in which case a USDA permit is required.