WILD KINGDOM

Michael Jackson has overcome permit problems over his pet giraffe--could brother Jermaine be headed for similar red-tape troubles at his Brentwood estate?

Speed S. Fry, the building contractor who did masonry work for Jermaine last year, told us that the singer’s bodyguard was draped with a six-foot boa constrictor--a “real friendly” reptile, Fry said--and that Jermaine talked about “bringing in a 400-pound cat.” Swan Pierson, a neighbor, said he’d also seen the snake but neighbors were more concerned about a tiger glimpsed near the Jackson premises last October.

An official at the L.A. Department of Animal Regulation said that files show wild-animal permits issued to Michael, but records back to 1984 indicate no such requests for Jermaine (who’s on tour and couldn’t be reached for comment).

Jackson attorney Michael Starler said his client “did acquire a (large) cat” but has assured neighbors that it doesn’t live on the Brentwood estate. Starler said that he’s never seen anything there “more exotic than a small dog, and I think a middle-sized boa constrictor would have swallowed that.”