Do you mean not seen all over America?
That comes surprising to me because Plzen is the only zoo keeping Southern black-backed jackals (canis mesomelas mesomelas) in Europe. What about Asia and Oceania? Are there southern black-backed jackals anywhere? It would be really sad if just Plzen had them as the only zoo in the world because one day they won't live anymore and then no zoo has them...
Do you mean not seen all over America?
That comes surprising to me because Plzen is the only zoo keeping Southern black-backed jackals (canis mesomelas mesomelas) in Europe. What about Asia and Oceania? Are there southern black-backed jackals anywhere? It would be really sad if just Plzen had them as the only zoo in the world because one day they won't live anymore and then no zoo has them...
There are, of course, still a handful of places keeping non-subspecific Canis mesomelas in Europe - however as the species is, I believe, being actively phased out it will not be too long before they are gone I fear.
I guess, there are more elphants,tigers,zebras and giraffes in zoos than meerkats, but nobody cares, because "common" elephants and even tigers are, strange, but true, very popular to zoofans,altough they are not"rarities",but not merkats-why ?So it is time to open a new thread called "I can't see them anymore"for species, zoochatters can't see them anymore-so elephants would be on the top of my listBy the way-next week I will be in Zürich to see the new elphant exhibit.But only the exhibit-not the elphants, because I cant see them anymore
Meerkats are found in 368 collections within Europe. According to Zootierliste, the taxa you mentioned are distributed in collections as follows:
Elephant
Bornean Elephant: 1 collection
Malayan Elephant: 1 collection
South African Elephant: 42 collections
Indian Elephant: 39 collections
Sri Lankan Elephant: 7 collections
Sumatran Elephant: 2 collections
Non-ssp African Elephant: 36 collections
Non-ssp Asian Elephant: 80 collections
East African Bush Elephant: 10 collections
Even if we ignored the fact that some collections hold multiple forms, and counted all the holdings seperately, we would still end up with a total of 218 collections holding elephants - two-thirds the number of collections holding meerkats.
Again ignoring the fact some collections hold multiple forms, this ends up with a total of 382 collections. Bearing the chance of multiplicity in mind, I would argue it is likely the true number of collections holding meerkats is somewhat higher.
Even if one counts each holding seperately and ignores the probability of multiple forms being held, one ends up with a figure of 366 collections - as such the true figure is likely to be significantly under that of meerkats.
Again ignoring the chance of multiple taxa being held, this leads to a total of 267 collections holding giraffes - as such the true figure is likely to be over a hundred collections fewer than those holding meerkats.
To summarise, there are most certainly more collections holding meerkats than there are zebra, elephant and giraffe, and very likely to be more collections holding meerkats than there are tigers.
