Known zoo animals that are off-exhibit

- Many zoos keep various education ambassadors behind the scenes. I won't list all the ones I am aware of here because the list is long.
- Many zoos also have behind the scenes breeding programs, such as American burying beetles at the Roger Williams Park Zoo. I believe they also keep eastern cottontail and a few other small animals behind the scenes there as well.(@ThylacineAlive might be able to confirm this)
 
Neil chace said:
- Many zoos keep various education ambassadors behind the scenes. I won't list all the ones I am aware of here because the list is long.
- Many zoos also have behind the scenes breeding programs, such as American burying beetles at the Roger Williams Park Zoo. I believe they also keep eastern cottontail and a few other small animals behind the scenes there as well.(@ThylacineAlive might be able to confirm this)
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Roger Williams and Queens Zoo keep New England Cottontail bts for reintroduction programs.

Cincinnati and St. Louis also keep American Burying Beetle off-exhibit for similar reasons.

The US Partula snail program seems to be 100% off-exhibit at this point in time.

~Thylo
 
Toledo has a Common wombat off-display, but apparently if you're lucky and happen to be on their safari train thing, you could get a glimpse of it. They also are on-and-off with animals, so every visit's different (though I can usually assure you that they're just not on exhibit).

UngulateNerd92 said:
Great idea for a thread! West Palm Beach Zoo keeps a Pondicherry vulture (Sarcogyps calvus)
off exhibit which is the last of it's species in North America. He came from the Jacksonville Zoo in 2008 I believe. I got to go off exhibit to see and photograph this animal. This was back in 2018. I am not allowed to share the photographs here.
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Why are they being so secretive with the vulture (I've seen this individual online before)? :(.
 
I am pretty confident Zoo Tampa has clouded leopard and serval off exhibit. They have always been on and off exhibit anyways and they were supposed to move into the "conservation center" but I have not had access to that to say where they are now/still.

At one time they had a number of semi-rare birds in the "pheasantry", which was an off exhibit area with a good number (maybe 10?) of aviaries housing all sorts of birds. But they tore that down when they built Safari Africa.

I believe that they still have a small pack of Red Wolves off site at a facility in the Green Swamp as well, but I am not sure that program is still going either.
 
birdsandbats said:
Are there any American Burying Beetles on exhibit anywhere?
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Not to my knowledge, no.

Neil chace said:
Roger Williams used to keep some on exhibit, unfortunately the building they were in was demolished to make way for the travesty that is Faces of the Rainforest.
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I never saw the beetles in that building since I started keeping note in 2012. I know they were exhibited before that, though. They exhibited Partula in the Australasia building at the same time.

Azamat Shackleford said:
Why are they being so secretive with the vulture (I've seen this individual online before)? :(.
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He is a very old bird. That said, Brahma the vulture has since been transferred to the World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis where he is intermittently exhibited along with many other rare raptors.

~Thylo
 
I meant with the whole "don't share the photography" thing, though I see what you mean with the vulture being off-display.
 
Omaha keeps an innumerable amount of reptiles, fish, and amphibians behind the scenes. The black footed penguins which used to be exhibited by the giraffes are there too. Idk if they’re still alive, but there are black footed cats behind the scenes too.
 
tigris115 said:
Doesn't SDZSP have a bonobo troop that's not on exhibit?
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They did for a while, but they no longer keep Bonobos as far as I know. These Bonobos were publicly viewable when the Wgasa Bush Line monorail was in operation. They were viewable from the monorail ride. Even after the monorail was removed, the Bonobos remained at the park, but they were no longer viewable to the public, except for specially booked tours. The last time I saw them was in 2011. I need to take a look at their studbook.
 
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IndianRhino said:
The park's remaining bonobos were sent to SDZ years ago and a bachelor pair of gorillas recently moved into their former habitat.
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Gorillas, wow, very interesting. I am not surprised... What was the reason for this move? Is that exhibit still viewable for special tours?

Pardon my digression, but I wanted to share that as far as I know, the original inhabitants of this exhibit space were Mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx), and like the Bonobos (Pan paniscus), they were viewable from the Wgasa Bush Line monorail.
 
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The Monterey Bay Aquarium has an undescribed comb jelly which have never been in captivity behind the scenes. It is related to the bloody belly comb jelly and is referred to as the "amber lobate" though they may have died out.
 
Brookfield Zoo has a list of ambassador animals on their website that includes some species not kept on display, such as serval, tamandua, and cockatoo.

They kept King cobra on display after the Reptile House closed to the public for a few years before they were transferred out and articles about the Conservation Center conversion do mention that animals remained present after closing.

I was told by a keeper around fifteen years ago that they had Bonobo off-display in Tropic World, and this has been reported on zoochat at least once before, but they are not listed in the studbook so there is some doubt about that, unless it is based on animals that were held many many years ago?
 
Reid Park Zoo here in Tucson keeps and breeds Southern tamanduas (Tamandua tetradactyla) off-exhibit, I believe some of their tamanduas are also used as ambassador animals. The only Myrmecophagidae they have on public display are their Giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), which are depicted on their logo. In the past, they also kept a Marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna) off-exhibit
 
As far as I’m aware there are a few places in the UK that keep Scottish Wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) off display, however I’m not entirely sure exactly which institutions do this as there as several that also keep them on-display and many institutions are involved in their breeding programme. I do know that Chester, at one point, had them off-display, but weather or not they still do I’m not sure.
 
pendraig_milnerae said:
As far as I’m aware there are a few places in the UK that keep Scottish Wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) off display, however I’m not entirely sure exactly which institutions do this as there as several that also keep them on-display and many institutions are involved in their breeding programme. I do know that Chester, at one point, had them off-display, but weather or not they still do I’m not sure.
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This page has the collections who are part of the breeding programme.

UK conservation breeding programme for wildcats

Of the list I’ve visited Shepreth, Linton, Beale and British wildlife centre. While all of them had on show cats the BWC stated specifically they had some of the cats off show / BTS as you say.
 
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