Most common species in Zoos?

Just for the sake of clarification:

That's one of my trainees demonstrating the tailing method on a leucistic ratsnake. My wife is holding one of our kingsnakes. So: no picture of me handling a venomous snake. Sometimes, you're making rather rash generalising statements; so don't be surprised when people address you on that. There's more to the world than just the good ol' US of A.

 

I didn't say you were handling venomous snakes, and people who use snakes as educational animals in the US usually use non-venomous ones, but that for me at leas most snakes are much more interesting to watch when they're climbing up someone's arm than when they're behind glass.

 

Sorry for being so anal, but since this is my business we're talking about, I have to take extra care that no incorrect information about it is generated. Currently, there is no picture of me on ZC or my website handling any snake.

 

I said it looks like you're handling a venomous snake because it identified the picture, not that you were handling venomous snakes. I was agnostic on whether the snake was a venomous, non-venomous, or rubber snake since both of the latter are used to demonstrate the handling of venomous snakes. I will admit that I was specific and apparently incorrect about you being the one to handle it. Sorry about that, and also for not being clearer that I wasn't saying it was definitely a venomous snake. (That said, the "you" in my first post was a generic "you" referring to your business as a whole.)

I know that I only have the US (plus the Montreal Biodome) to go on, but the idea that Europeans would object to handling non-venomous snakes in order to educate visitors wasn't one that even crossed my mind, and I doubt that visiting EAZA zoos would have changed that. AZA zoos also don't generally handle snakes (or any animals) for display, at least not on zoo premises, however smaller collections and people who travel around with collections of "educational animals" often do.

 

Where did you get this idea from? Most AZA zoos have animals for educational talks and demonstrations, which are definitely handled by keepers/educational staff/docents and often by visitors, depending on the species. Also these talks and demonstrations can take place on or off zoo grounds. Animals used for this include insects, snakes, lizards, box turtles, birds, hedgehogs, armadillos, binturong, aardvarks, fennec foxes, and chinchillas among others. And then there are bird shows, which most zoos also have and which involves handling animals on zoo premises.

 

Your convoluted explainations are not really helping @Zygodactyl ...but anyway. I do handle my venomous snakes (rattlesnakes, European vipers, copperhead, cottonmouth, elapids etc.) if necessary and I do employ the handling of the gentle specimens of my non-venomous snakes for (very popular) educational talks (as depicted by the picture with the little girl). But there's currently no picture of me on both sites doing this. OK?

Where did you get this from??? Depending on the species and the individual specimen, non-venomous snakes are frequently handled for said educational talks/demonstrations.

 

@Coelacanth18 : I guess I should have said that I've never seen AZA zoos do this, so its absence in EAZA zoos would not have been noticed by me. Batto is right that I have an unfortunate tendency to jump to conclusions, one which other people have remarked on and which I try not to do but still do.

In this case: I saw a lot of snake talks at small facilities and from people traveling with their "animal ambassadors" and none at AZA zoos, and all the talks I have seen at AZA facilities didn't involve taking the animals out, therefore AZA zoos must not give snake talks on their grounds.

@Batto: I don't think my explanations are convoluted, however I'm trying to be clear to avoid future misunderstandings. I may have overexplained. I do have a tendency to jump to conclusions which I'm trying to break, so I'm annoyed that you suggested I did that in a case where I explicitly didn't. And I'm trying to explaining my thinking in detail in the hopes that it keeps me from misinterpreting anything else you say.

With that in mind, what I thought you were saying was that my belief that you handled snakes for visitors were a result of being an American, hence the comment about there being more to the world than the US, which I thought was a reaction to me commenting that it's common in the US for people to give snake talks.

You're now saying that you do take out snakes to give snake talks, but you reacted negatively when I said that you take snakes out for visitors and that you only do it as necessary. Combined with the comment about the good old USA and the fact that Europeans tend to have animal welfare rules that would seem silly in the US (like not hand-feeding birds if it's avoidable), I thought you were saying that it's not acceptable to handle animals for the edification of visitors in Europe.

 

Sometimes, brevity is the soul of wit, Zygo. I've stated what was necessary. If you still have beef with me, just send me a PM or call me (CET, please). Since you've studied my homepage, my business telephone number should be known to you.

 

The most common non-domestic species I have seen in zoos is the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog.

 

In Australia almost all Zoos have Kangaroos (Usually Red, Western Grey or Eastern Grey), Emu, Bearded dragons (Usually Eastern or Central) and Blue Tongues (Usually Eastern or Shingleback).

 

I apologise for the thread bumping an old thread but how did you come across this information? I tried browsing through ZooTierListe myself but sadly I couldn't find anything about a commonly held species list.

 

This was an old list on Zootierluste. Given that the comment in question is over four years old, it's likely to be inaccurate.

 

It's the Holding Charts option on the left-hand ribbon (Haitungs-Top10). It only works for me in the German language version of the site though, not the English language version.

 

Forgot about this thread. All numbers have been rounded a bit. In the USA:
Ungulates (non domestic):
Deer - Fallow 215, white-tail 190, elk 140
Deer adjacent - Reeve's muntjac 100
Pigs - Warthogs and RRH both around 75
Gazelles - Blackbuck 80
Cows - American bison 240
Cow adjacent - Nilgai and common eland 90
Goats - Aoudad 90
Giraffe - 215
Odd-toed - Plains zebra (all ssp) 265, white rhino 70

Carnivores:
Feline - Bobcat 330, tiger 300, cougar 240, lion 230, serval 230
Canine - Red fox 300, fennec 150, arctic and grey 115, gray wolf 210, coyote 140
Bears - American black bear 230, brown bear 115
Procyon - Kinkajou and northern raccoon around 225, south american coati 150
Striped skunk 275
Mustelids - American badger 50
Otters - North American 190, Asian small-clawed 90
Pinnipeds - CA sea lion 65, harbor seal 55
Spotted hyena 65
Meerkat 80
Binturong 90

Red kangaroo 230, Bennett's wallaby 160, VA opossum 225

 

No way only 80 facilities have meerkats, right?

 

I'm genuinely shocked there are more holders of aoudad, eland, muntjac, binturong, etc than meerkat. Most people (obviously not including zoochatters) don't even know what those first four are but the general public very much knows and adores meerkats so you would expect more zoos to house them.

Thanks for the very informative list, by the way @TinoPup!

 

Meerkats are not ubiquitous in the US, in fact I'm shocked those numbers are so high.

 

Meerkats and other mongooses are classified as injurious wildlife in the US, meaning transporting them requires special permits. This pretty much excludes them from smaller facilities.

 

Do you think Bobcat is the most common zoo animal in the US then, or does something you don't a list for beat it out? Ring-tailed Lemur, perhaps?

 

You need to use the german version, and then "Home" --> "Haltungs-Top10"

The current list is the following (excluding domestic animals):
1 Indian peacock: 988
2 Common fallow deer 845
3 Emu 598
4 Northern raccoon 551
6 Red-necked wallaby 547
7 Golden pheasant 539
8 Blue-and-yellow macaw 530
9 European eagle owl 492
10 Snow owl 484
11 Ring-tailed lemur 483
12 Mandarin duck 471
13 Red-eared slider 468
14 European white stork 463
15 European mouflon 455
16 Green iguana 450
17 South American coati 449
18 Nandu 430
19 Black swan 398
20 Bactrian camel 397
or if you don't count the sorta domesticated camel
20 Central-European wild boar 364