nice. In today's rates, the tiger would be £1500, the binturongs £1300 each, the sealion £5600, the donkey £180, the caimans £890 each, the guanacos £1900 a pair, and the sooty mangabeys £640 a pair.
I suppose those prices give an indication of the scarcity of some of these animals then. I can't imagine anyone prepared to shell out that much for the guanacos today - the mangabeys would be a snip though.
£40 for a puma on the Chester list, as opposed to £1500 for Colchester's tiger or £200 for Jersey's serval. Makes it obvious why all those little home-run zoos round England in the 70s had pumas!
Which is ironic considering that, about ten years ago, the species was on the brink of disappearing from British collections altogether (I think we were probably down to about five individuals at Shepreth, Gentleshaw, Dartmoor and Santago). It seems interest has picked up again, fortunately.
Paradoxurus -- any chance of you posting these lists in a format that I can read please? I would love to see detail
Anyone else -- Animal Life magazine some 50 years ago used to regularly advertise Hartmann Mountain Zebras direct from South Africa at £200 each.
