Brooklyn’s underground world of illegal pets
Brooklyn is filled with proud dog-walkers, stray cats that watch lonely commuters on their late-night walks home and the occasional bird screaming through its cage out a tall window down to the streets below. But behind apartment doors and fenced in backyards across the borough, illegal pets make up a large network of Brooklyn’s animal residents.
The New York City Health Department prohibits ownership of any animal other than a domestic dog or cat, small bird or reptile or a pocket pet like a small rodent. But this law doesn’t stop exotic owners from keeping exotic pets in their homes.
Between January 2014 and January 2015, the city’s 311 system collected 251 complaints in regards to residents keeping these outlawed pets, according to a report by DNA Info.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.