The Prairie Dog. To me it seems to be every zoo. I have been to many more zoos that have prairie dogs than zoos that don't have prairie dogs. Even the smallest zoos seem to have prairie dogs. In my experience, prairie dogs are more common than Meerkats! But at every zoo I have been to that has prairie dogs, it is just one continuous species: the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog. Are there any zoos that keep other species of prairie dogs?
I wondered about it too: could some zoo outside North America display 4 other species of Prairie Dogs: White-tailed, Utah, Gunnison's or Mexican? The same with otters: there could be 100 of zoos with Asian short-clawed otters in the West. Might zoos start to balance and display African short-clawed, Congo short-clawed, Spotted-necked, Neotropical, La Plata, Marine, Smooth-coated or Hairy-nosed Otters?
For the general public I expect one otter species is much like another, so there is not much call for new species to be added. According to Zootierliste Belfast and Valencia hold Spotted-Necked otter, but otherwise the only otter species in Europe at least are European, North American, Giant and Asian Short-Clawed. For myself, the big gap in otter diversity is the lack of Sea Otter in European collections. For other prairie dogs Rockenhausen in Germany holds Gunnerson's but that is all for Europe - the rest are Black-Tailed.
There are 3 collections currently keeping them, so that gap is not that big . Europe is not a bad place in terms of otter diversity, with mostly stable or expanding populations, I expect only the spotted-necked otters to disappear again in the near future....
Lisbon bred them twice (those are the 2 still present there), but breeding is not allowed with the current animals, who are simply rescue animals that can't be released anymore...
It does seem strange that the most common species of prairie dog is kept in zoos, even though species like the Mexican and Utah are much rarer.
