A Guide to the Rarities of the Southwestern United States

I'll let someone else respond about those species, but that list looks out of date to me.

For the monkeys you still have, I'm getting 47 usda hits for vervet and 53 for patas.

 

Wow, roadside zoos are going to be the bane of me. Did you use any sort of list for that, I know you mentioned USDA hits so is there a database for that?

 

So there's a website where you can download USDA inspection reports. Last year I went through and downloaded all of the reports for exhibitor license holders with active licenses, several thousand of them, and have folders with them organized by state. I go through every week or two and download all of the new ones, then move the older ones for that facility (if I have older ones) to a separate folder. That way I can do a search of the "current" folder and just get the most recent reports without duplicates. In that way, I'm able to search by species. Obviously they aren't full proof, nothing is for species lists, but other than for a few species they're decent, and at minimum give you an idea of the the number of facilities. For species like those primates, a few probably no longer hold them or are incorrect, but they're cancelled out by the few that don't have licenses or ones I don't have an inspection for (it's rare, but it happens!). I keep spreadsheets for all carnivora species and actively check those against websites/social media/etc.

USDA recently added a search feature to the inspections page, but I'm not sure how good it is. They're also very prone to using old taxonomy, and lately they've been awful at including the taxonomy at all for some species. It takes a while to get into the flow of catching on to what might be incorrect, what the systems are, that sort of thing.

 

Flamingo Wildlife habitat has brown pelican, I think those are on the rarer side but I could be wrong. I believe the white lions at siegfried and roy's secret garden and dolphin habitat might be Panthera leo melanochaita because of their color which are kinda rare to my knowledge

 

Brown Pelicans are close but not rare. The subspecies you mentioned is the South African Lion white lions do not have their own classification but are genetically the same as South African Lions. Because there are no Asiatics in North America (?) I won't be doing lion subspecies for this.

 

San Diego Zoo is the only holder of Sociable Weavers in the US. I’m pretty sure they also have a lot more rare species of birds, but this is the only one I can remember right off the bat.

San Diego Zoo Safari Park is the only holder of Goliath Heron in the US.

I think Texas has this in the bag when it comes to rarities, since the Dallas World Aquarium is a treasure trove of rare South American species found nowhere else in the country. Examples include: Brown-Throated Three-Toed Sloth, Venezuelan Red Howler, Antillean Manatee, Resplendent Quetzal, Curl-Crested Jay, Three-Wattled Bellbird, Saffron-Toucanet, Many-Banded Aracari, Black-And-White Hawk Eagle, etc.

 

Thank you for the info on San Diego birds. I am not including Texas because it is mainly considered part of the Deep South.

 

Gone a year or two now, the species is no longer in North America.

Afaik DWA does not hold these now. They might have a quetzal kicking about somewhere, but the other two they don't have.

 

Does Mandalay bay not have devils hole pupfish bts anymore?

 

I wouldn't go around telling Texans that Texas it is mainly part of the Deep South and not part of the Southwest. You might get hurt.

 

Ok, next state Utah!
Utah surprisingly has a good collection of Birds. All of these rarities can be found in Utah's main city of Salt Lake City.

Living Planet Aquarium:
A fairly normal aquarium with reef sharks, exhibits for the Amazon, North America, and South America; and a good penguin exhibit

Birds: Gentoo Penguin, Spotted Dove

Fish: Bonneville Cutthroat trout, Giant Shovelnose Ray


Hogle Zoo:
The only major zoo in Utah, sadly most of its collection is ABC so not many rarities but overall a good zoo with good exhibits.

Mammals: Markhor

Birds: Rough-Legged Hawk, Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture, Radjah Shellduck


Tracy Aviary:
By far the institution with the most rarities in Utah Tracy has a fairly good collection of rare birds. It should also be noted Tracy had many birds that just barely missed the rarity mark

Birds: Edward’s Pheasant, Abbysian Ground Hornbill, Micronesian Kingfisher, Red-Billed Toucan, Chestnut-Breasted Malkoha, Franklins Gull, Caspian Tern, Long Billed Curlew, White-Throated Ground Dove, Mauritius Pink Pigeon, Common Nighthawk, Kea, Chaco Chachalaca, White-Faced Ibis, Bearded Barbet, Grey-Necked Wood Rail, Double-Crested Cormorant, Cinnamon Teal

That concludes Utah. Next will be Colorado with Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and Denver Zoo should make for an interesting list.

 

I’m sorry but I don’t remember my thought process for the gentoo but I will keep that noted. As for the rest I used the many lists of birds species in North America. I went through every single one in the North American category and put it into my master document. So check for yourself in their respective threads. But I do agree I didn’t expect some to be rare, the radjah shellduck really threw me off because I swear they were more widespread.

 

Actually Spotted Dove is held in very few institutions in the US, somewhat surprisingly.

 

Hogle had Lannar Falcon when I visited a couple years ago. I suppose they could be common in falconry circles but I've never previously seen one in a zoo. Living Planet Aquarium also has a bunch of other native Utah fishes that I can't imagine are frequently displayed: Desert, Bluehead, Flannelmouth, June, and Razorback Suckers, Virgina River Chub, Woundfin, Bonneville and Mountain Whitefish. They also have Gray Reef Shark, which is way less common than other Requiem Sharks in US aquaria.

 

I believe they also have a species of hagfish on display, which to my knowledge aren't often displayed.

I see where you picked this up, but do you have confirmation? I didn't add it to my master list for BoP in North America because it went unconfirmed.

Not super rare... not the commonest, but there's a lot of rarer species out there.

All of these have at least 14 holders each...

I'm pretty sure these aren't that rare...

Both of these were handled with caution on my threads due to the potential for wild hangers-on birds.

Those are not complete catch-all lists either, they are not exacts. Particularly for areas like Utah and New Mexico in your stated area it was hard to find updated lists. They're compiled off zoo websites, Zoochat reports and photos, and updates from Zoochatters themselves. Thus very much reliant on Zoochatters visiting, which in many cases here doesn't seem very common. Long and short I'm saying do some of your own research too, especially for rarities.

 

There are only 3 North American holders of Mauritius Pink Pigeon - Tracy, Bronx, and SDZSP.

 

For the Hogle Zoo vultures someone said later in your thread Hogle kept the Birds of Prey they received from the company that did the original show.
For the pink pigeon: Pigeons and Sandgrouse in North American Zoos

I’m using what I have, there really isn’t much information besides what is on Zoo Chat for some of this.

 

Yes, but it was still unconfirmed whether the vulture was a part of that. (I say that having gone and reread the entire thread.) Also I can't find any other reference to the bird in question online apart from a photo uploaded to ZC in 2013 by @Ituri. Anyone have any further information on the bird?

Yeah I looked, apparently much more rare now than they used to be.

There really isn't, a lot of information has to be gleaned by digging around on here and finding out from active members.