What wild mammals have you seen in zoos?

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animalszoos

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What wild mammals have you seen in zoos?
How do wild mammals get along with captive mammals?
Have there been any incidents of wild animals preying on captive mammals or vice versa?
Are wild mammals encouraged or discouraged in zoos?
 
In Durrel Wildlife Park, now renamed Jersey Zoo, I saw red squirrels roaming around the zoo during my visit.
 
Paignton - badgers, stoats, rabbits, grey squirrels, rats. They used to have Badger Watch evenings in a special hide, but the badgers have moved from the main sett so they no longer take place. There were lots of rabbits in the zebra field but either the stoats or the zoo appear to have reduced their numbers. The rats I saw were helping themselves to food in the walk-through aviary and I think squirrels were responsible for holes in the netting in that aviary a while ago.
 
I've seen brown rats, house mice and grey squirrels at London Zoo, a brown rat at Colchester Zoo, red squirrel at Berlin Tierpark and striped field mouse at Berlin Zoo.
 
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Several squirrel and rabbit species. A mouse at the Saint Louis Zoo that I couldn't identify. The National Zoo's animal houses run rampant with house mice. On the grounds of both the National Zoo and the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore I have seen white-tailed deer.

As for interactions, I know birds of prey often take down smaller mammals, even to the point where the harpy eagle at the Dallas Zoo was caught dragging an opossum through the fence. I've seen a few animals preying on wild birds. They're generally discouraged because it's a bit hard to ensure that the wild animals are free of infections or the like.
 
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Rats, mice, grey squirrels & rabbits in countless zoos.
The best one was a weasel in the Gorilla cage at Howletts though.
I've never seen a wild mammal caught by a captive one, only wild Pigeons that have been careless in a Leopard, Tiger enclosure. Also saw a gibbon eating a wild bird
 
Grey squirrels pretty much everywhere, brown rats at Chessington, no end of house mice at London, and a stoat at Paignton
 
Aside from the usual pest species that get everywhere, at Wildplace I have seen Roe deer, Fox, Weasel, and Field Vole. In the wolf enclosure the wolves regularly hunt voles, and the occasional squirrel.
 
The Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha has wild prairie dogs in a certain area of the zoo, and Iv'e seen deer roaming the grounds of the National zoo and San Diego safari park (the later is more understandable). On occasion I have seen opossum roaming the zoo grounds of the Fort Worth zoo (and many more times dead in the harpy eagle exhbit, along with racoons). Same as in the Dallas zoo as Jayjds mentioned (It certainly isn't a pretty sight, espcially since the harpies in fort worth love to bring their catch onto the chain overhang above guest viewing).
 
At David Fleay Wildlife Park I have seen Ibis, magpie geese, purple swamp hens, pied cormorants, great cormorants, red necked Wallaby, delicate garden skink, noisy mynahs bush turkeys and eastern water dragons.

At Australia Zoo I have seen purple swamp hens, a green Tree snake, Ibis, sparrows, a carpet Python (you could hear the Asian tourists screaming from a mile off) bush turkeys, pied cromorants, delicate garden skinks, great cormorants, noisy mynahs and eastern water dragons.

At Jurong Bird Park I saw purple swamp hens and a wild green Iguana!

At Singapore Zoo I saw a large amount of nesting storms. And one very adventurous one flew into the cheetah exhibit. One of the cheetahs ignored it while the other one was straight on it. The cheetah smack the storm onto the concrete with its paw before it could get a chance to fly away. The stork, not ready to die was desperately trying to flying away as the cheetah had it pinned to the ground. The cheetah then went in for kill, but the stork squirmed out of its grip just in time and the storm started running for its life and although one of its wings were broken it still had enough life to make it up and over the exhibit wall.
 
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One time (this isn't my experience and it was a while ago) a deer somehow found a way to get in the zoos polar bear exhibit and tried to fight the polar bears but the crazy thing is the bears didn't kill him
 
animal_expert01 said:
At David Fleay Wildlife Park I have seen Ibis, magpie geese, purple swamp hens, pied cormorants, great cormorants, red necked Wallaby, delicate garden skink, noisy mynahs bush turkeys and eastern water dragons.

At Australia Zoo I have seen purple swamp hens, a green Tree snake, Ibis, sparrows, a carpet Python (you could hear the Asian tourists screaming from a mile off) bush turkeys, pied cromorants, delicate garden skinks, great cormorants, noisy mynahs and eastern water dragons.

At Jurong Bird Park I saw purple swamp hens and a wild green Iguana!

At Singapore Zoo I saw a large amount of nesting storms. And one very adventurous one flew into the cheetah exhibit. One of the cheetahs ignored it while the other one was straight on it. The cheetah smack the storm onto the concrete with its paw before it could get a chance to fly away. The stork, not ready to die was desperately trying to flying away as the cheetah had it pinned to the ground. The cheetah then went in for kill, but the stork squirmed out of its grip just in time and the storm started running for its life and although one of its wings were broken it still had enough life to make it up and over the exhibit wall.
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Nice sightings and I am not trying to belittle them in any way. But just a friendly reminder this thread is specifically about mammals, so birds and reptiles would be excluded.
 
Mule deer (San Diego Safari Park)
White tailed deer (Caldwell Zoo, Fossil Rim)
Rock squirrel (Reid Park Zoo, Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and I am sure others)
Harris antelope ground squirrel (Arizona Sonora Desert Musuem)
Feral cat (Nashville Zoo, Reid Park Zoo)
Raccoon (Phoenix Zoo)
Desert cottontail (Phoenix Zoo, Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, Reid Park Zoo)
Coyote (Arizona Sonora Desert Museum - but only in the parking lot)
Mouse of unknown species (Reid Park Zoo and probably others)
Pack rat (Arizona Sonora Desert Museum)
 
I've seen squirrels and rabbits at quite a few zoos, but the most unusual wild mammal I've seen was a weasel at the Hogle Zoo.
 
Field vole in the old anteater enclosure at Chester (not necessarily a good thing, because I think Chester lost some cheetah cubs to a condition which may have been spread by voles).


House mouse at too many zoos to mention. Photo from the elephant house at Chester.

I have also seen a wild mouse, probably a field mouse, in an oak tree in Miniature Monkeys in Chester - it was being eaten by a kestrel, but I'm sure it was caught in the zoo.

Rabbits and grey squirrels in many zoos in the UK, plus a red squirrel (black morph) at Tierpark Hellabrun in Munich in 1973. Stoats in the middle of Paignton Zoo a couple of times and a long time ago in the wildfowl collection at Martin Mere (where they are commonly seen in the adjoining nature reserve). And one weasel carrying a dead starling near the old moose enclosure on top of the escarpment at Whipsnade.
The one mammal I'd be very happy to see more often is the water vole. 40 years ago they were very common at Slimbridge and all the other WWT collections, but they have declined dramatically and I think the only one I have seen this century was in moat of the Monkey Islands at Chester, when they were trying a reintroduction scheme.
 
As others have mentioned mice, rats, grey squirrels and rabbits are often seen at various zoos.

During the 1970s and 1980s, I frequently saw brown hares at Whipsnade; the numbers appeared to decline during the 1990s as I seldom saw them during that decade; sadly, it is many years since I saw a hare there. I have also seen weasels occasionally at Whipsnade.

At London Zoo open evenings, I have sometimes seen hedgehogs walking round the zoo and, occasionally, seen bats (Daubenton’s?) flying over the canal.

I have seen water voles several times at the Wildfowl Trust’s Arundel branch.

I have often seen red squirrels in many German zoos, including melanistic individuals several times in Stuttgart, Munich and Nuremburg.

Once at Walsrode, I saw a mole digging in one of the formal flower beds; something that I am sure would have upset the gardeners.

I particularly enjoyed watching the nine-banded armadillos roaming round Central Florida Zoo although my favourite was a spot overlooking the sea at Marineland of the Pacific (long since closed) from where it was possible to see wild Calfornia sea-lions.
 
Just remembered, at Shaldon I saw both a family of Brown Rats (in the Macaw enclosure), and a Field Vole (in the Prevost's Squirrel enclosure)
 
I've seen brown rats and house mice, greater and lesser short-nosed fruit bats, Indian flying foxes, colugo, Pallas' squirrels, variable squirrels, plantain squirrels, greater tree shrews, dusky langurs, crab-eating macaques, rhesus macaques, small Indian mongooses, Indian grey mongooses, common ringtail possum. And probably others I don't remember off the top of my head.
 
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