While in a couple of parks in north London I heard a series of sqwaking and observed Ring Necked Parakeets flying freely and acting quite naturally . On returning home i did some research and it seems this stems from a group from kent /south east london. Anybody else seen any unusual exotics on the loose
In the 1980-ties I visited London Zoo and in Regent's Park I saw lots of Grey squirrels, a species I had never seen before !
There are Brown-nosed Coati breeding in the southern portion of Cumbria and the northwestern portion of Lancashire; saw one near Ambleside some years ago.
Its not hard to guess where they came from,but they will never admit it,because the place is the perfect zoo!
If I told you there are also breeding colonies of Prairie Dog all around the Furness peninsula of Cumbria, would that help tip you off? Well, it's the truth..... That said, there are a good few interesting exotics found elsewhere in the UK: Red-necked Wallaby around Loch Lomond. Muntjac throughout the UK up to southern Scotland. Chinese Water Deer in East Anglia. Raccoons in pockets all over the place.
There are also populations of Quaker parrots in the UK. I can see how they are a pest, but their gigantic nests are truly amazing sights to see.
I assume the praire dog is up north near the coati's . yes i know about the deer but where are the racoons then
All over the UK in small pockets - I believe the vast majority are single escapees from private collections, but I think there *are* breeding populations in County Durham, Hampshire and Kent. It does indeed; although rather reduced in numbers these days after the severe winters of a couple of years ago, and less obvious now the sealion enclosure is gone (as they used to remain in that area) they are still a pretty guaranteed sighting.
Around Hertfordshire? I vaguely remember reading it somewhere. I'm unsure of their numbers now, as eggs have been removed from nests, and nests being destroyed.
I've seen golden pheasants around London and I get ring-necked parrots in the garden of my house in the UK (greater London near Surrey). I also believe there are some Siberian Chipmunks in the South-East. Also, the rabbits in the UK were originally introduced, as were the common pheasants.
The wild Coati are not from SL, I worked at SL in the early 2000's, yes the coati would regularly get out and we would have to catch them and return them to their enclosure, which at the time was a sunken area surrounded with a hot wired overhang, but they also had a tunnel to which they could access the bear enclosure which was a hot wire fence. We were required to count the coati at both the start and the end of the day, but how can you be 100% certain when doing a head count on a 30+ strong group of small fast animals. All coati were microchipped and data kept up to date with medical records etc. We had a phone call one day, some one had caught one of our ring tail Lemurs in their garden, and it was a good hour drive away from the park, so the confused head keeper and the acting curator jumped in the van to go collect this lemur, they returned with a coati, an unchipped coati, an unchipped female coati, our group was all male chipped coatimundi, so someone somewhere was missing a female, but it didn't originate from SL, well atleast not from that current group anyway, so I suppose that doesn't clear anything up.
Nope it doesn't but given that they have been about since the 90's in low numbers it doesn't help,but as you say how can you count a group of 30+,its reassuring to know that even back in 2000's that high standards of not being 100% sure about something,were in place back then!!
In Ireland there are several yellow bellied sliders living wild, particularly in the canals and in the phoenix park in dublin, there are several wallabies living on lambay island, off the coast of dublin, from a colony that was purposefully established there in the 50s (the owners of the island are fascinated with wild animals, and tried to introduce other species there, but the wallabies were the only successful ones) and supplemented by surplus from dublin zoo in the 80s. as far as other non native species, we have the usual american mink, grey squirrel, sika deer, muntjac deer, pheasant etc. and of course the re-introduced white tailed and golden eagles.
Pretty sure I saw a wallaby from the train just outside Harlington in mid-Beds a few months back (really not that far from Woburn)
Others species include ; Little Egret, Glossy Ibis, Great White Egret, African Grey Parrots, Alexandrine Parakeets and Blue-Crowned Conures, Cockatiels, Budgies and various Lovebirds. Most of these Psittacines were of course pet birds that have established small colonies. Though it is not surprising when you consider just how many African Grey Parrots go astray each week for instance. The Alexandrines and Blue-Crowned have been seen in much smaller groups compared to some of the others.
