It is quite odd how non-existent dromedaries are in the UK, I've also only seen them at Berlin! I wonder why they are so rare here, my best guess is zoos like to use Bactrians as "stand-ins" for their wild counterparts and they may be more cold-hardy as well?
The thing that surprises me most when talking to Britons from outside of London is that many of them have never seen a fox or get excited about seeing one when coming here. Meanwhile, I was kept up last night by the sound of them fighting outside and saw one in my back garden yesterday morning for the fifth time this week! By contrast, I get excited by kites and egrets only to be informed by locals that they are remarkably common.
I didn't see a capybara until I was in my early 40s and it was in a zoo outside of my country.
Just stumbled back upon this thread and am pleased to see that in the year and a half since I made that post, I've managed to see every animal I brought up (some multiple times!) aside from the American badger. I've made more of an effort to tally up what mammals are around in the US that I haven't seen, and as far as I can tell the badger is easily, objectively my most overdue mammal. Number two is bighorn sheep, number three is southern pudu (which I have missed once and unfortunately had to deprioritize a second zoo with them recently). After that, a handful of species are nearly tied for fourth: mountain goat, Geoffroy's cat, wolverine, fisher, Speke's gazelle, maybe a few others with about 10 holders each. None of these are found anywhere remotely nearby, of course.
Are there any species that are either widespread in captivity, or that you have had multiple strong opportunities to see, and yet luck is simply not in your favour, and you are yet to have seen them? I have many, and in the hope that it will relieve some of the pain, I will be sharing them here,and am very interested to see if other ZooChat members share the agonising feeling.
Banded Mongoose (Mugo mugo): 93 European zoos hold this species, according to ZTL, 8 of which in the UK, and yet I have never seen one. Having always confused them with Dwarf Mongooses, I thought I had for quite some time, and the realisation that they remain a target species was a shocking one.
Beaver (Caspor sp.): With many childhood holidays to Southwest England, I had many night-time trips into the woodland with my parents searching for them, along with badgers. But all I had to show for it was a dead badger on the side of the road, and several trees which beavers had evidently gnawed at. I rectified the badger when discovering that a family member in Wiltshire has three that regularly visit their back gardens, but beavers continue to evade me. I went mad with excitement thinking I had seen one while cycling near Lauenberg in Germany, and although the realisation that they were invasive Nutria was a slight disappointment, they were still a nice species. Beavers are also decently common in zoos, but always seem to be sleeping without an onshow indoor area.
Eastern Quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus): I have a feeling that I may have seen one in Twilight World at Bristol Zoo when I was younger, but am by no means certain. When I returned to Bristol, the building was closed due to the pandemic, and when I returned the following year after it had opened, the last quoll had passed away. I had another chance to see them at Menagerie JdP, but with mere minutes before the zoo's closure by the time we got to their exhibit, which I dismissed as a callitrichid house due to its icon on the map, I decided to skip it, a decision that I regret to this day.
Fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox): Of the five euplerid species present in European zoos, the Fossa is by far the most common, kept at 36, of which 6 are in the UK. And yet, I have seen four of the five with the Fossa confusingly being the exception. They evaded me at Chester, I missed their enclosure at Marwell, and their exhibit was under renovation when I visited Vincennes! My luck with them is just terrible!
Thanks for reminding me of this thread and therefore prompting me to look back at my own list. I’ve seen European Beavers now at Tierpark Dessau, which was lovely as they were adorable and far larger than I would have expected, though it does feel a bit anticlimactic that after all the time spent searching for them in the wild my first encounter was in a zoo. I also saw Banded Mongooses a few days later at Zoo Dresden, which I had actually completely forgotten about until checking now. Hopefully I will be able to see the quolls, fossa and wild beavers soon…
I've seen American badgers, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep in the wild. It is so interesting how different all of our experiences are
It's crazy to me that someone could have seen so many crocodile species but not have seen a saltie! They're extremely common in Australian zoos, perhaps the most or second most common (the other contender is the freshie). To my knowledge, only four crocodilians are kept in Australian facilites - freshie and saltie are very common, a few holders of American Alligator and a single specimen of New Guinea Crocodile (C. novaeguineae sensu stricto) - of which I've seen all four.
