Best Zoos for Different Taxa

LaughingDove

LaughingDove

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
After reading TLD's comment in his trip thread yesterday in which he wrote "...whilst Tierpark Berlin is possibly the "Walsrode" of hoofstock." it got me thinking, what are the 'Walsrodes' of other animal taxa. I mean this in terms of which zoos have the best/most diverse collections of different taxa, many of these will be the best in terms of visitor experience, husbandry, etc. as well, however maybe not necessarily.

Here are some of my thoughts and suggestions:

Birds in general - Walsrode (does anywhere else come close? Jurong?)
Rodents - Plzen (significant numbers off show, however I suspect it's on this list with just the on show stuff)
Toucans (and Aracaris and Toucanets) - Dallas World Aquarium
Parrots - Loro Parque
Common Pheasant subspecies - Plzen
Crocodilians - St. Augustine
Waxbills - Plzen (though mostly off show)
Pigeons and Doves - Plzen? (again, largely off show)
Geckos - Maybe off show at Plzen again?
Primates - Vallée des Singes? Apenheul? Probably lots more contenders...
Monotremes - Taronga?
Marsupials - Almost certainly somewhere in Australia, but where?
Waterfowl - Maybe Blackbrook formerly, though possibly Walsrode now, or maybe Slimbridge?
Flamingos - Slimbridge
Hoofstock - Possibly Tierpark Berlin as above, or somewhere in the US?

Some other stuff that I thought would be interesting: Carnivores? Marine Mammals? Fish? Reptiles? Birds of Prey? Invertebrates?

I would be interested if you disagree with any of my suggestions or have ideas for other taxa that I haven't thought of.


(Ps. Apologies if something like this has been done before, I had a quick search and didn't see anything, but if it has I'm sure someone will know. Probably Chlidonias :p)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
For waterfowl, check out the Sylvan Heights Bird Park in North Carolina. They claim to have the world's largest collection, and the list of species on their website is very complete, with the exception of northern sea ducks (for which I supposed the climate of North Carolina may not be ideal). Bronx Zoo and it's satellites (Central Park Zoo, etc.) also have great waterfowl collection and are particularly strong in sea ducks

For marine mammals, Sea World Parks (Orlando and San Diego) probably have the best collections in the western world, though some of the Chinese and Japanese oceanariums may in fact overshadow them.
 
For primates, there is a monkey park in Japan (Inuyama?) which very recently claimed to have 90 or so species. I think for diversity nothing comes close, though the keeping conditions there are not great

For carnivores, I am under the impression that Berlin parks (combined) still have the most diverse collection...
 
Reptiles: Plzen zoo, Lausanne Vivarium (Switzerland)
Venomous snakes: Moscow zoo
Birds: Attica zoological park (Greece, somewhere stated that it is third largest bird collection in the world, but who knows..), San Diego Zoo (300 bird species) (how much Walsrode posses?)
Felids: Parque de felines (France)
Invertebrates: London zoo
Australian reptiles: Irwin's Australia zoo
Rhinocerotidae: White Oak conservation centre, San Diego zoo and SDSAP
Brazilian snakes: Butanan Institute
Lemurs (diversity) in general: France

??!
 
OWLS

At the current time, due to the fact the World Owl Trust has not opened at their new site and their captive collection has been temporarily dispersed, the Scottish Owl Centre is almost certainly the largest owl collection in the world, with a total of approximately 47 taxa.

----

Contrary to the assumption by Nikola above, the country with the greatest lemur diversity in general is the United Kingdom, with 22 taxa to the 18 held within France. If one expands the field to prosimians in general, the tally is 29 to 20. However, the collection with the greatest number of lemur taxa is Plzen, with 14 taxa; they hold 2 additional prosimian taxa.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
OWLS

At the current time, due to the fact the World Owl Trust has not opened at their new site and their captive collection has been temporarily dispersed, the Scottish Owl Centre is almost certainly the largest owl collection in the world, with a total of approximately 47 taxa.

----

Contrary to the assumption by Nikola above, the country with the greatest lemur diversity in general is the United Kingdom, with 22 taxa to the 18 held within France. If one expands the field to prosimians in general, the tally is 29 to 20. However, the collection with the greatest number of lemur taxa is Plzen, with 14 taxa; they hold 2 additional prosimian taxa.
Click to expand...

Doesn't the Duke Lemur Center have the largest collection? Their website lists 18 species, plus 3 other strepsirrhines. I'm not sure how many are shown on tours, though.
 
Giant Panda said:
Doesn't the Duke Lemur Center have the largest collection? Their website lists 18 species, plus 3 other strepsirrhines. I'm not sure how many are shown on tours, though.
Click to expand...

They don't show all of these species on tours, unfortunately. When I did a behind the scenes tour in 2011 I saw only 8 or so species (but that included the last diademed sifaka in captivity, which had since died)
 
Nikola Chavkosk said:
Reptiles: Plzen zoo, Lausanne Vivarium (Switzerland)
Venomous snakes: Moscow zoo
Birds: Attica zoological park (Greece, somewhere stated that it is third largest bird collection in the world, but who knows..), San Diego Zoo (300 bird species) (how much Walsrode posses?)
Felids: Parque de felines (France)
Invertebrates: London zoo
Australian reptiles: Irwin's Australia zoo
Rhinocerotidae: White Oak conservation centre, San Diego zoo and SDSAP
Brazilian snakes: Butanan Institute
Lemurs (diversity) in general: France

??!
Click to expand...

Plzen definitely doesn't have the largest collection of reptiles, it has a few rarities and various things on show and a massive collection of geckos off show, however most of the reptiles are in the terrarium.
Though even including the terrarium, there are certainly other places with larger collections.

According to zootierliste, Walsrode has 672 species, of which I believe all but two are birds. Generally, German collections are quite accurate on ZTL, so I'd say that's more or less accurate. I'd be fairly certain that Attica Zoo has fewer than that.

I assume all of those places you list for Rhinos just have three taxa?

Does anywhere have more than four species of Great Ape?
 
Walsrode has the largest collection of bird species (around 650-700 (around 4,500 individuals?)), whereas Jurong has the largest number of individual birds (around 5,000? (around 400 species)).

I'm pretty sure St. Augustine has the same amount of crocodilian taxa as Krokodille Zoo in Denmark, so they are equal on that level.

For Birds of Prey Newent ICBP perhaps?
 
zoo_enthusiast said:
They don't show all of these species on tours, unfortunately. When I did a behind the scenes tour in 2011 I saw only 8 or so species (but that included the last diademed sifaka in captivity, which had since died)
Click to expand...

That's unfortunate but not unexpected. I'm fairly jealous on the sifaka front :D
 
Macaw16 said:
I'm pretty sure St. Augustine has the same amount of crocodilian taxa as Krokodille Zoo in Denmark, so they are equal on that level.
Click to expand...

According to zootierliste, Krokodille Zoo has one fewer than St. Augustine since it doesn't seem to have Cuban Crocodiles.
 
LaughingDove said:
I'd be fairly certain that Attica Zoo has fewer than that.

I assume all of those places you list for Rhinos just have three taxa?
Click to expand...

Attica surely have far less than Walsrode number of species, maybe some 250-300 species. Actually the number of species can be counted on their website.

Actually on ZTL it is stated that Attica holds just 185 species of animals, but on Wiki it is stated that holds 400 species of animals, mostly birds.

Yes they hold three rhinos taxa (Black, white and Indian).
 
I think the Gibbon Conservation Center in California has the best collection of gibbon species. According to their website they've got 5 species from all 4 genera
 
LaughingDove said:
According to zootierliste, Krokodille Zoo has one fewer than St. Augustine since it doesn't seem to have Cuban Crocodiles.
Click to expand...

I believe they do have them, and they were listed for the species at one time - so I suspect someone has deleted the listing after not seeing them there :rolleyes:
 
For Cetaceans, the worlds best aquarium is Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in China. There are currently 7 confirmed species housed at the park, although I would not be surprised to see them adding more as times goes on.

For marine mammals in general, that is much tougher to say, but it likely goes to a facility in Japan.
 
LaughingDove said:
(Ps. Apologies if something like this has been done before, I had a quick search and didn't see anything, but if it has I'm sure someone will know. Probably Chlidonias :p)
Click to expand...
like this one?
http://www.zoochat.com/2/zoo-has-most-268489/

LaughingDove said:
Marsupials - Almost certainly somewhere in Australia, but where?
Click to expand...
see here for marsupials: http://www.zoochat.com/24/largest-collection-macropods-399354/ (numbers probably not exactly accurate now).

LaughingDove said:
Monotremes - Taronga?
Click to expand...
definitely Taronga, with three species. The next contenders are several other Australian collections with two, and I think the Port Moresby Nature Park probably has two as well.
 
Saint Louis Zoo for vipers? 30+ species. Many of those are rattlesnakes, but several are also rare exotics, a few of which might be unique to STL.
 
Asian turtles- Turtle Survival Center, South Carolina.
Storks- Dallas Zoo (7 species)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top