I used to work at PetCo and we worked closely with people who were cracking down on stuff like this because these people would come in to buy stuff for their tortoises they found in their backyards and such.

In the United States, it is illegal to take any wild animal from their habitat and keep it as a pet. Yes, people do it, but that does not change the law.

I tried to find specific information but sources were hard to come by (especially when all the links that came up pertained to owning Exotics such as Tigers and Bears lol!)

http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer...=adopt_exotics
http://www.houstonzoo.org/Wild_Anima...Pets/Index.aqf

Wow finding information is a lot harder than it looks

EDIT: Ahha found something useful finally!

http://ipl.unm.edu/cwl/statbook/indian.html

To obtain permits: http://www.fws.gov/permits/

Federal Law handbook:
http://ipl.unm.edu/cwl/fedbook/index.html