Bellevue Village Board sets new limits on pets

BELLEVUE – On July 23, the Bellevue Village Board unanimously approved amendments to the village’s municipal code.

The new code would allow for eight animals — to dogs, three cats and five other permitted animals — excluding farm animals in Districts A-1 and A-2.

“Any person who keeps chickens on land in the Village which the person owns, occupies or controls shall obtain a permit issued by the Village Clerk-Treasurer. The permit is valid January 1 through December 31, and the fee shall be as established by resolution of the Village Board,” the code reads.

“Up to a maximum of four chickens at any one time are allowed on a parcel with a permit regardless of age.”

Roosters are not permitted.

“There were some considerations made at the board level, as well as some thoughts from our animal control humane officer,” added Bellevue Village Administrator Ben Krumenauer.

“We just needed to identify what it means to have a hybrid or a wild, like a wolf hound or something. So based on the recommendation from our animal control humane officer, it was pretty simple that we would say anything greater or anything less than three generations removed from wild would be prohibited. That means that if you have a leopard and a domestic cat that had a baby cat, you could have that three generations later. So, it no longer becomes a wild, it becomes a domestic animal. So, we just clarify that. And the primary reason for that is just simplifying what means to have a wolf hound. Wolf hounds are really becoming the common animal, but they’re only one or two generations away from a wild wolf, and that’s just not safe for our community.

“The second piece here was just excluding the Western Hognose; that’s a common snake that are again.

“So what we’ve done here is done a lot of research. Really, it turns out that most toxic amphibians develop that trait from ingestion of natural plants or animals in their environment. So, captive bred, even when you consider a dart frog isn’t toxic if it’s captive bred, because it doesn’t get that toxic bug that it eats to create that, or the environment it’s in. So we wanted to identify that and simply say that non-captive bred amphibians that are naturally poisonous or toxic, or become poisonous or toxic because of the ingestion, or other methods, are prohibited. Basically, if you get one out of the Amazon, you can’t bring it home with you, but there are legal methods to collect amphibians that would be allowed.”