Thread about reserves and other places, where normaly rare wild animals can be seen for sure and very well - with quality of zoo exhibit. My 3 cents: brown bear: Apparently only sure place are city outskirts of Brasov, Romania. Several brown bears feed there in rubbish bins at night - right near city blocks. maned wolf: Semi-tame at monastery/hotel at Caraca, Brazil. European elk/Moose, European Beaver: Easy to see at dusk near Famulki, Gorki or Truskawka, outskirts of Warsaw, Poland
Four locations in the UK for you. I was lucky enough to visit them all in 2007. Grey seals at Donna Nook, Lincolnshire (November) for pupping, suckling and breeding. Gannets at the Bass Rock, Lothian (July) Puffins, kittiwakes, shags, razorbills, guillemots, eider ducks, Arctic & Sandwich terns etc at the Farne Islands, Northumberland (May & June) Bottle-nosed dolphins at Chanonry Point, the Black Isle near Inverness (you sometimes see salmon too!). The last location is the least reliable and the most exciting! You can wait hours and see nothing: but you can be lucky and see lots of dolphins close inshore. Alan
I've been to the farne Islands and it is amazing!!! I also recommend California. There are lots of areas where you can get really close to wild sea otters and northern elephant seals!
Children's Pool in La Jolla California is a harbor seal rookery, and Sea Lions can be seen throughout San Diego Bay. Yellowstone National Park up in my neck of the woods is fabulous for moose, bison, wapiti, pronghorn, mule deer, bighorn, trumpeter swans, bald eagles, sandhill cranes, black & grizzly bears, coyotes, and wolves all can be seen quite readily. Also I see pronghorn out in the parking lot of where I work on a regular basis, and because of the snows we've had this winter, there were elk (wapiti) out there as well.
@Ituri: You are definitely correct about Yellowstone National Park, as in my solitary day travelling through the park there was a rich resource of wildlife. It was actually quite unbelievable how many animals my wife and I saw in only about 8-9 hours. Sea lions in San Francisco, San Diego and all along the California and Oregon coastlines are a tremendously entertaining sight for all road-trippers.
the richest spots i have visited are... Valdez Penninsular, Argentina I saw southern elephant seals, sea lions, magellanic penguins lots of southern right whales and guanaco, rhea and chilean flamingoes. apparently you have a good chance at patagonian cavies and orca too. Pantanal, Matto Grosso do Sul, Brazil capybara, nine-banded armadillio, agouti, red howler monkeys, brown-nosed coati, tyra, spectacled caiman and just about a billion types of macaws, amazons, toucans, rhea and waterfowl topped my list. but was unlucky not to see giant anteater species and anacondas too, since they are pretty common. Kinabatangan River Sabah, East Malaysia as you all know i saw orangutan, gibbon, langurs, macaques, proboscis monkey, elephants, bearded pigs, crocodiles, monitors and a billion birds but just about anything bornean is a possibility here.... Yala East National Park, Sri Lanka wild elephants, deer and more deer, jackals, langurs, macaques, mongooses, heaps of birdlife mugger crocodiles and the like, but we were not lucky enough not to have seen either a sloth bear or leopard. i would have gone back the next day. but you know what disgruntled girlfriends are like. places that arn't so great - wherever it was i went a few hundred kilometers south of Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon. forget the name (somthing like lake mamari or something) whilst the pink dolphins are easy to spot, and i also saw agouti, sloth and got really close to a tamandua, the monkeys are never much more than silhuettes, scampering off in the distance. it seems many of the animals are hunted reguarly in the region and they know it. likewise Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary in far northeastern West Bengal, India has a plethora of what the Terai has to offer, but so much red tape that it makes seeing anything near impossible. i was resorting to bribing mahouts just so i could do a safari from elephant back for longer than the designated 1 hour (and there is only one per day) and without the indian tourists who seem to think if you call out to wildlife they come to you. it took me 3 days (thats for 3 hours) to see a indian rhino and it made me wish i just gave up on india and realised the best place to see indian wildife was in another country - nepal!!! my advice, i hear Chitwan is fantastic.
@Patrick: I am extremely envious, as I'm sure many others will be once they read your informative post. I've gone hiking and driving through many mountainous sections of western Canada and seen a variety of wildlife, but certainly nothing as exotic as nations like Brazil, Argentina, India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. While in Australia I had a blast at Philip Island near Melbourne, and I'm sure that you've been there to see the little/fairy penguins. Also, Kakadu National Park near Darwin is home to crocs, snakes and an enormous variety of birds. Those sites seem extremely exotic to a Canadian up here in the cold. Haha
thanks snowleopard, i've been back a few weeks and i'm already plotting the next one.... madagascar and eastern africa. (then PNG and a bit of the pacific) but get your gear on!! after all canadians are in the league of backpacking nations. interestingly my housemates are both tour guides that operate the fairy penguin tours (for rival companies), yet for some reason i have never gone!!!
@Patrick: the fairy penguin tour was a blast, and Philip Island is quite the nature preserve. There is a small wildlife park there (that to be honest is a bit run down), a fur seal colony that can be seen through binoculars from a brand new visitor centre, and then the penguins themselves. My wife and I paid for the "private tour" and went with three strangers and a guide down to the beach at night. We had rainjackets and pants on, along with infrared goggles. For about an hour we were sitting on the beach, viewing the couple of hundred fairy penguins that ventured ashore to their nesting dens. Some of these tiny penguins passed no more than 6 feet from us, and then as we walked back to the main building we passed literally hundreds of penguins at the edge of their burrows. It was quite a unique experience.
Is one of their companies called 'Express to Penguins'? When I was in Melb I used to see their coaches full of Japanese tourists heading off to Philip Island. I never went as you could see them(the fairy penguins) where I was in NZ. They are the same as 'little blue' aren't they...
@Pertinax: the little/little blue/fairy moniker is different, but the bird species is the same. The smallest of the 17 or so penguin species, and the guide at Philip Island told me that the "fairy" term was dropped as it wasn't politically correct and too fantastical for what he called "little" penguins. Fairies can bring up images of ogres, castles and shining knights. Haha
Northern Cassowary/Casuarius ubappendiculatus pictures from birds photos on webshots Imagine seeing this on a boat trip in New Guinea!
Thanks for the photo writhedhornbill. When I was on a guided tour in Cairns I saw a wild cassowary, but it wasn't swimming. I was in an "army duck" vehicle (half jeep/half tank) near a little village called Kuranda, and a cassowary at one point leisurely strolled about 15 metres in front of the vehicle.
Back in my youth (well, it was only 5 years ago!) I was lucky enough to travel for 6 months through South America. Some of my favourite wildlife locations were: Chilean & Argentinian Patagonia: guanaco, huemel (Andean deer), parakeets, grey zorro, Magellanic woodpeckers, torrent ducks and several close encounters with Andean condors Tierra del Fuego: American beavers, Southern fur seals, Patagonian sealions, black-browed albatross, giant petrel, Magellanic and gentoo penguins Bolivian altiplano: vicuna, alpaca, James's, Andean and Chilean flamingoes, black vulture, giant coot and vizcacha Bolivian Amazon (Aldo Madidi NP and Santa Rosa Sanctuary): caiman, capybara, agouti, red and black howlers, South American tree porcupine, squirrel monkey, macaws and parrots, toucans, river turtles, tonnes of waterfowl, hoatzin, raptors, anaconda, pink river dolphins, piranha and about 5 billion mosquitos. I saw lots of tapir and peccary tracks but not the animals. Closer to home, one of my favourite holidays in recent years was walking along the Pembrokeshire coast path. Quite apart from all the seabirds (puffins, razorbills, guillemots, gannets, oystercatcher etc), I also saw wild badgers, grey seals, red-billed chough, a grass snake, a common lizard, harbour porpoises and common dolphins.
Some of the best places I have been to........ Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire: Plenty of primates including Red Colobus, Olive Colobus, Diana Monkey, Sooty Mangabey, West African Chimpanzee, Potto, African golden cat, palm civet, Johnston Genet, Bongo, Bay duiker, Forest Elephant, Giant Pig, Spot-breasted and Olive Ibis, Black-collared lovebird, Black and yellow casqued hornbill, Blue cuckooshrike and White-necked Picathartes. Unfortunely the quailty of this park has descreased since I was there in 1992. Belum-Temengor Forest, Peninsular Malaysia: A week long stay here cab show to be increadibly rewarding, I have seen Asian Elephant, Gaur, malay tapir, Serow, sambar, Large mouse deer, leopard, clawless otter, yellow-throated marten, Agile gibbon, white-handed gibbon, pale-thighed leaf-monkey, Crested wood-partridge, crestless fireback, crested fireback, Lesser fishing eagle, Garnet pitta, Giant pitta and 10 species of hornbill present. Arfak Mts, West Papua:One of the most pristine and untoached areas which still exist on this earth, feels like you are walking in a prehistoric forest. Plenty of amazing species such as New Guinea Harpy Eagle, Papuan Mountain Pigeon, Yellow-capped Pygmy-Parrot, Feline Owlet-nightjar, Black Fantail, Western Parotia, Arfak Astrapia Long-tailed Paradigalla and Volgekop bowerbird is very likely to be encountered here Mostly very few mammals seen, but Grizzled Tree-kangaroo, Long-beaked echidna, feather-tailed possum and Stein cuscus possibly for those being dedicated Ngawun Reserve Forest, Myanmar:This place is located about 2 hours away from were I live and its my favoruite spot for wildlife in Myanmar with a large number of uncommon species present, Clouded leopard, Indochinese tiger, leopard cat, large-spotted civet, Asian elephant, red muntjac, Banteng, Gaur, lar gibbon, dusky leaf monkey, hog badger, Crawfurd silver pheasant, Blyth hawk eagle, Storm stork, Bay owl, Blue-rumped parrot, Gurney Pitta, Banded pitta, White-crowned hornbill, Great hornbill, Crested jay, Asian paradise flycatcher and Green broadbill. Its also the largest remaning area of Sundaic lowland forest in mainland Asia. Lope National Park, Gabon: Another place were a large number of primates can be seen, Mandrill, Putty-nosed monkey, Sun-tailed Guenon, Crowned guenon, Black Colobus, Chimpanzee and gorilla. Other animals that all is relativey easy issRed forest Buffalo, red river hog, sitatunga, Peter duiker, yellow-backed duiker, blue duiker, african civet, ground pangolin, Bat hawk, tiger heron, Hartlaubs duck, African Black duck, Black Guineafowl, Red-necked Francolin, Narina Trogon, Giant Kingfisher, Piping hornbill and Rachel Malimbe El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, Mexico:A awesome place and much less touristic than plenty of places in Peru and Ecudador for example. During 8 days here I saw Grey fox, Ocelot, Jaguar, Jaguarundi, Margay, Tayra, Neotropical otter, Coati, Bairds Tapir, white-tailed deer, Mantled Howling monkey,Geoffrey spider Monkey, Silky Anteater, Northern Tamandua, Hairy Dwarf Porcupine, Lowland Paca, 12 species of other rodents. The birdlife is rich, nearly 420 species recorded so far, some of the best ones being Thicket Tinamou, Horned Guan, Highland Guan, Ocellated Quail, Boat-billed Heron, King Vulture, Harpy Eagle, Crested Caracara, Collared forest falcon, Bearded Screach-Owl, Rufous Sabrewing, Blue-throated Motmot, Black-throated Jay and Bar-winged Oriole
WAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! sebbe67, you have no idea how jealous i am that you have been to west africa and new guinea!!!! what was gabon like? i have long wanted to go there , spend my money, and reward the nation and president bongo for designating so much space to conservation areas.
To move the thread. Gir national park in Gujarat, India, is naturally home to asian lions. You can see them easily on jeep runs and even walk into wild lion by foot! They don't attack people. It is also almost certain place to see leopard (some scavenge goats outside Sasan Gir village at night). Many more widespread Indian animals, like Sambar, Spotted Deer, Nilgai, Indian Gazelle, Mugger Crocodile, Hanuman langur and lots of birds are also seen. (Just a question: please write if animals can be realistically seen and preferably, seen very well. Unfortunately, in most reserves either animals are too shy, or entry to best places is prohibited. Many national parks list animals which probably are long extinct)
Hi Patrick, Yes I would say West/Central Africa and New Guinea are the two places on earth I have travelled around as most in, and therefore among top places I have visited. I loved Gabon and will certinely try and visit this country again at some point. Apart from the usual safari spots in Kenya, South Africa and Botswana I would say that Gabon is one of the absolute best countries in Africa for wildlife. I spend a month in the country and covered a large part of the country, becoming happily supprised about how much intact rainforest that still exist in the country. Many areas is not completely emptied on animals becuase of illegal poaching as is the case in many other african nations (just take Cameroon for an example), and many of the animals is naturally unshy therefore. The country is very sparsely populated apart from the coast, while travelling around on my own it sometime took several days before I saw another human being, which is very unusual for being Africa. And it is a complete heaven for someone (like me) that is fanatic when it comes to rainforests, and thanks to the fact that the goverment has put down really serious efforts in protecting is therefore, unlike many other countries in Africa, still largely covered in rainforest. Most countries in West Africa (with a few exceptions) now looks like huge logging concessions, this is not the case in Gabon. And aim more intereted in visiting a country like Gabon where I know that the goverment is enviromental aware and puts down alot of money to try and protected the places which you visits, unlike places like, say Ivory Coast for ex, where the goverment is very corrupt and were there is a very little chance that any of your spent money goes into protecting and supporting protected areas.
Try the west coast of Scotland guys, over on the island of Mull there is white tailed sea eagle, golden eagle and magnificent herd of red deer. On the coast around the island there are a large population of sea living European otter, common and grey seal, killer whale, minke whale, humpback whale, harbour porpoise and others. A great wildlife spot.
sebbe67 - thankyou. it has forever been my number one spot i wish to visit most in mainland africa, and one of my number one spots i have wanted to visit at all. i'm there. awesome!
