Rarest animal(s) at your local zoo

pachyderm pro said:
Totally forgot I made this thread, probably because I've suppressed every post I made in 2016/2017 from my memory. :p I personally define "rarity" as being a species that's found in five or less holders in the country. Here are some species held at the Chicago collections that meet that criteria:

Brookfield Zoo Chicago

Black and Rufous Sengi (one of four holders in the US)

Crested Capuchin (one of three holders outside of the South America)

Small-spotted Genet (no more than a handful of other AZA holders)

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (One of five holders in the US)

White-bellied Pangolin (one of only two holders worldwide, only public exhibitor).

Greater Prairie-Chicken (only public exhibitor in the country, only known holder of the pinnatus subspecies)

Lincoln Park Zoo

Bourke's Parrot (One of five holders in the US)

Green Broadbill (one of three holders worldwide)

Kagu (one of five holders in the US)

Puerto Rican Parrot (only holder outside of Puerto Rico)
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And yet Bourke’s Parrakeet is a very common aviary bird on both sides of the Atlantic
 
Jakub said:
@Kalaw
Splendid sunbird is also kept in Zoopark Zajezd, Czechia.
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It’s great that there’s a new holder, apologies for the error. I see on ZTL that they arrived earlier this year, but any idea where from? I presume a private holder?
 
The closest large zoo near me, if you don't count aquariums, is Pairi Daiza, in Belgium

Bear cuscus
Giant Panda
Spix' Macaw
Lear's Macaw
Muskox
Steller's sea lion
New Guinean Short Beaked Echidna
Tasmanian Devil
Wombat
Bird of Paradise
Walrus
Golden Takin
etc.
 
kermodei said:
And species only rare within North American collections:
(* notes species no longer kept by the zoo)
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In all due respect, African cheetah and eland are not rare in North American collections, and scimitar-horned oryx and addax are around more commonly than I would call "rare" (or at least in the places I have been to).
 
kermodei said:
When the Mountain View Conservation and Breeding Center here in B.C. was still open and operating, it was definitely a hub for seeing rare (both in the wild and in captivity) animals. If memory serves, they specialised in small wild cats and hoofstock, several of which were/are rare within captive collections:
As I wasn't able to track down an exhaustive, publicly available list of species kept by Mountain View, what I've provided here is based on what I could find online and personal recollections from my three visits to the facility. Some other species, like blue crane, fossa, vicuña and white-faced saki are not uncommon in captivity but were/are rare to find in facilities within North America.

Now to jump one town over :)

The diversity of the Greater Vancouver Zoo's collection has, for better or worse, definitely dwindled from what it once was, and so this list will be sort of a mish-mash (and likely far from full). For species rare in captivity as a whole:
And species only rare within North American collections:
(* notes species no longer kept by the zoo)

Also of note, the zoo once had the claim to fame of being the only facility in the world to house a true albino American black bear!
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Update! Maybe this is only exciting to me but I was able to find a fairly comprehensive list of species kept by Mountain View over the years. My sources for the rarity of these species is based on both what Zootierliste has for them, and statements via Mountain View's records. Species with one star are rare within North American collections, while two stars denote species rare only within Canadian collections.
  • **Aardwolf
    • The first and only facility in Canada to house and breed (late 1990s) the species.
  • **Abyssinian ground hornbill
  • **Addax
  • African wild cat
  • **African wild dog
  • *Amur leopard cat
  • **Andean condor
  • **Arabian sand gazelle (Rhim gazelle)
    • The first and only facility in Canada to house and breed the species.
  • **Asian golden cat
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • **Black duiker
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • *Black lemur
  • **Blue crane
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • Brown hyena
    • At one time the only brown hyenas kept in North America.
  • Cuvier's gazelle
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species and home to one of the largest herds in captivity.
  • Dama gazelle (Mhorr gazelle)
    • The first and only facility in Canada to house and breed the species.
  • "King" Cheetah
    • Mountain View kept a pair of "king cheetahs" (one male and one female) alongside two regularly patterned females (carriers of the "king cheetah" gene), but was never successful in producing cubs of either coat pattern.
  • Fishing cat
    • Foundation specimens were imported from the Port Lympne Safari Park in 1993 and bred successfully over the years. Offspring would go on to several other facilities both within North America (San Francisco Zoo, Cincinnati Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Exotic Feline Compound, Discovery Island and Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo) and internationally (Sao Paulo Zoo and Taronga Zoo).
  • *Geoffroy's cat (Paraguay subspecies)
  • **Gerenuk
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • **Gordon's wild cat
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • *Indian desert cat
    • The only North American facility to house and breed the species (several litters born in the 1990s).
  • Indian giant squirrel
  • **Indian rhino
  • **Fossa
    • Only facility in Canada to have had a fossa (Acquired from the San Diego Zoo in 1996).
  • Leopard cat
  • **Masai giraffe
  • Mountain tapir
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species. The pair were on breeding loan to Mountain View from the Los Angeles Zoo, who still retained ownership of them.
  • Northern spotted owl
    • The only facility in Canada to house and breed the subspecies, which is ironically enough is functionally extinct within British Columbia.
  • Northern sitatunga
  • Onager
  • **Pallas' cat
    • The only facility in Canada to house and breed the species.
  • **Pygmy hippopatamus
    • Only two facilities in Canada have ever housed this species, those being the Toronto Zoo and Mountain View, with both locations seeing breeding success. The latter sourced one of their foundation specimens from the Toronto Zoo, and the other from the Whipsnade Zoo.
  • **Red-flanked duiker
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • *Red ruffed lemur
  • **Rusty-spotted cat
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • **Southern sable antelope (Black sable antelope)
    • The only facility in Canada to house the species.
  • Vancouver Island marmot
  • *Vicuña
  • **White-faced saki
Phew! I could certainly still be missing some species but this is definitely an upgrade from my previous list. Any pointers on accuracy are much appreciated!

Collecting data for this post has been a bittersweet experience, as it really amplifies how unique of a place Mountain View was, especially in Canada, and makes the fact that things went so downhill all the sadder imo. If anyone has questions on where Mountain View sourced some of its animals, I'm happy to try and answer! :)

SwampDonkey said:
In all due respect, African cheetah and eland are not rare in North American collections, and scimitar-horned oryx and addax are around more commonly than I would call "rare" (or at least in the places I have been to).
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Fair point! I was definitely a bit too broad there and should have specified within Canadian collections. Thanks for catching that!
 
For Riverbanks Zoo it might be their green broadbills, which I believe are kept at a total of three US zoos. They also supposedly still have the only(?) Madagascan green pigeons in the country, but if they're still around they've been strictly BTS for a while.

For Greenville Zoo, it's probably something not so rare like helmeted curassow or Ruppell's griffon vulture.
 
Toronto has Lion-tailed Macaques and Vancouver Island Marmot, both of which are, to my knowledge, not all that common in North America
 
There's more than one would expect at my local zoo, the Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park, especially given its size:
  • Bornean earless monitor (Lanthanotus borneensis)
  • Grey slender loris (Loris lydekkerianus)
  • West African potto (Perodicticus potto)
 
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