Mongoose madness: mongoose species and exhibits in zoos

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Mongoose species seem to be increasingly present as zoo exhibits, especially the superstars of the group, the meerkats.

Have mongooses always been popular as zoo exhibits and are now getting more attention than they used to, or are they genuinely getting more popular?

Does anybody know how many of the 33 species of mongooses are in captivity? I wonder if all of them have been kept at one time or another?

What is your favorite mongoose exhibit?

The San Diego Zoo used to have a group of dwarf mongooses living in the kopje exhibit. It was great fun to see them tumbling around each other and interacting. They have been gone from there for many years. Does anybody know why? They were true stars of the exhibit, perhaps equally or more so than their meerkat cousins in an adjacent exhibit. I wonder why dwarf mongooses are not more widespread in zoos? Do they not do well in captivity?
 
The ring-tailed mongoose exhibit at the Bronx Zoo's Madagascar is quite good--and they are the only ones on exhibit in North America. There's an older but not too bad exhibit of dwarf mongoose in the Carter Giraffe Building as well.

Oregon used to have kusimanse, but last time I visited it was just another meerkat group.

Denver has a nice group of banded mongoose, sharing space with crested porcupines.

I agree back in the day the dwarf mongooses in SD's Kopje were fantastic.

Import restrictions meant almost no mongooses, including meerkats, were exhibited in the US until the mid-80s.
 
reduakari said:
Oregon used to have kusimanse, but last time I visited it was just another meerkat group.
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Oregon also has Dwarf Mongooses in a unique predator/prey exhibit with Caracals.
Central Park has Banded Mongooses. They used to have Dwarf Mongooses as well, but those now live at Prospect Park Zoo.
 
The only species of mongoose I have seen are dwarf mongoose which are in 12 North American zoos. The Saint Louis Zoo has the best exhibit I have seen from looking at pictures in the galleries.

A male Liberian Mongoose that was sent to the Toronto Zoo in 1989 is still the only one ever to be in captivity.
 
The Smithsonian National Zoo has nicely sized and pretty naturalistic exhibits for both Meerkats and Banded Mongoose. Blospz, I think him, said on the zoo's news thread that they brought in a third species. I believe it was Dwarf.

~Thylo:cool:
 
Mongoose exhibits are definitely on the increase in the UK. Meerkats are by far the commonest, but there are now more species than there used to be. For example Chester has dwarf mongooses in an enclosure which was rebuilt for them a couple of years ago (which formerly held prairie dogs), banded mongooses mixed with warthogs, and yellow mongooses which were formerly mixed with red river hogs, now on their own in a larger enclosure originally built for sun bears. The other species which is increasing in the UK is the kusimanse, which is my favourite.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
The other species which is increasing in the UK is the kusimanse, which is my favourite.

Alan
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To the point that currently, I have not seen any at all, but once I have gone on my trip to the southwest I will hopefully have seen them at 4 locations in as many days!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
To the point that currently, I have not seen any at all, but once I have gone on my trip to the southwest I will hopefully have seen them at 4 locations in as many days!
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They are most definitely a South West speciality, they are a fantastic looking species and whenever I've been fortunate enough to see them they've always made a great display.
It's worth mentioning that the ring-tailed mongoose that reduakari spoke about are not true mongooses anymore, they've been moved to eupliridae along with fossa, fanaloka, narrow-striped mongoose and the other Malagasy carnivores. Saying that, still a great species! :D

On a personal note, I believe I've seen all mongoose species currently on display in the UK and I've also seen Indian grey and marsh when I was younger.
 
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Brum said:
reduakari spoke about are not true mongooses anymore, they've been moved to eupliradae along with fossa, fanaloka, narrow-striped mongoose and the other Malagasy carnivores. Saying that, still a great species! :D
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Indeed, I decided to be tactful and not mention this ;) I'll be seeing narrow-striped and fossa down south too, hopefully.
 
One place that has well and truly lost a once great mongoose collection is Colchester- since I started visiting at a young age the yellow, banded, dwarf and marsh mongooses have all gone from the collection. All that is now left is meerkats. Thankfully the latter are now in only one enclosure, instead of the two or three separate enclosures I remember from a few years ago.

One can only hope that this recent mongoose resurgance elsewhere will bring a couple of species back.
 
Marsh Mongoose are all but gone from Europe now.
 
I've seen several pictures of yellow mongoose in the galleries from various European zoos. They are very pretty animals. I'm not aware of any in North American zoos, although there may be.
 
DavidBrown said:
I've seen several pictures of yellow mongoose in the galleries from various European zoos. They are very pretty animals. I'm not aware of any in North American zoos, although there may be.
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I've been lucky enough to see them in Plzen and Prague. I'm pretty sure there are none in the US.
 
Apart from Liberian (how I envy anyone lucky enough to have seen that!) and Indian Grey Mongoose, which I vaguely remember from the Clore in the late 70s/early 80s, all the species described above are social species.

Solitary mongoose species seem to be no more popular with zoo directors than most other small carnivore species. Sad, but I don't see that changing any time soon.
 
Indian Mongoose in the UK?

Does anyone know where there is an exhibit of an Indian Mongoose in the UK? I am looking for a high profile documentary series. Any advice would be wonderful thanks so much!
 
justinea said:
Does anyone know where there is an exhibit of an Indian Mongoose in the UK? I am looking for a high profile documentary series. Any advice would be wonderful thanks so much!
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There are no Indian Mongoose in captivity within the UK at all, and in point of fact very few in Europe; there is a single animal held at Zoo Heidelberg in Germany and, I believe, one or two animals in private collections. The only other alternative is to visit the United Arab Emirates, which has a few collections holding the species.
 
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