How on earth does some obscure little British facility like Hoo Farm have raccoon dogs? Over here in North America there are literally more zoos that have giant pandas than raccoon dogs, and yet in England I could visit "Hoo" and see them! On a side note, is that "Bongorob" in one of the other photos?
They are a pretty common species in private hands over here, as are corsac foxes, which I imagine means that if a smaller collection wants to display some form of canid these are the easiest two to get hold of.
Raccoon Dogs used to be really rare in UK zoos as well, until they started filtering in from private holders a few years ago. I don't think I'd seen one on public display in Britain until YWP opened in 2009. Now they're much more common, but still absent from the large collections - YWP or Paradise WP are the biggest zoos with them.
In Europe as a whole they've never been rare - there are over 130 zoos listed with them on Zootierliste.
@snowleopard, raccoon dogs have been commercially farmed for their fur in parts of Europe for a long time and have also established wild populations in many countries there from releases/escapes. So they presumably wouldn't be at all difficult to get in Europe if a zoo wanted them.
I don't know why corsac foxes should be so common though. (I just saw my first ones recently in Beijing Zoo and they are really nice wee foxes!!)
Small enough that they can be kept quite safely by private keepers, I imagine. They are not amazingly common in public collections here but by no means unknown.
Never knew they had these beauties here. Looks like a decent sized enclosure. Do they have a pair?
Good thing for me is this place isn't so far away from me.
Never knew they had these beauties here. Looks like a decent sized enclosure. Do they have a pair?
Good thing for me is this place isn't so far away from me.
Been going through my pile of spoils from Zoohistorica, and found an interesting bit of information in this regard - Norfolk Wildlife Park seemingly had them up until the late 1970's or possibly early 1980's. Other than there, the only other place to have held them in living memory before the recent boom was Chester in the early 1970's.
There are a few other species held by NWP at the time which have gone un-noticed on ZTL, so I will be updating the listings with this information soon.
