Rarities on the Rise

Until 1971, the Chacoan peccary was considered an extinct species, known to the outside world only as a fossil.  Before 1996, none were to be found in North American zoos.  Today, they are a reasonably common species in American and European zoos.  I've seen them at about a dozen US zoos, most recently just a month ago.  From "not known to still be alive" to "fairly common zoo animal" in the space of a little more than 50 years.  Not too bad of a turnaround, really.  I know see this species more often than I see the once-ubiquitous collared peccary, which is native to the US.

Zoo enthusiasts have a tendency to grouse about how the diversity of species in zoos is going down.  And yes, it largely is.  It's somewhat disappointing that we can't see as many animals as we used to, but it really is, for the most part, probably for the best in many cases.  A lot of those species that we used to see were never really common themselves, only held in a tiny number of facilities, perhaps imported from the wild, and a lot of the living conditions left a fair bit to be desired.  Now, we see more emphasis on larger enclosures, larger social groups, and more sustainable populations.  Other species seem to have fallen out of favor, for one reason or another..  Macaques, for example, are shunned by many zoos due to fear of herpes viruses, while some zoos got out of exotic venomous snakes due to the expense of antivenin.

It's worth noting, however, that sometime it works the other way.  There are species that were extremely rare in zoos when I was young that are now very common.  Komodo dragons were once the ultimate rarity, found only at a single US zoo.  Then it became three zoos.  Now, I feel like I see them in the majority of AZA facilities I go to... and even in a few non-AZA.  When I saw my first fossa at the Dallas Zoo in 2008, I almost swooned I was so excited.  I took a lot of really bad photos but didn't care, because I was convinced I'd never see one again and I needed to have proof to myself that I hadn't dreamed it.  Now, they too are fairly common.

Panamanian golden frogs didn't occur in zoos at all until the early 2000s, and now are among the most popular of zoo amphibian species (within AZA only).  Titicaca frogs, a species that I'd once thought of as something impossible to keep and that I'd never see, are catching up with them rapidly.  I saw the only California condors on public display at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in 2000; I've been to five zoos with that species since COVID.  

Yes, the trend has largely been in the opposite direction, and there are some taxa which have been hit harder than others.  Even some big name, extremely popular species have been in decline.  Despite being what feels like a professional zoo-goer some of the time, visiting dozens of a facilities a year, I didn't see a polar bear last year until October.  Still, it's nice to realize that, even as we lose some species in our facilities, we still occasionally gain new ones, even ones that would have seemed very unlikely not too long ago.  I wonder sometimes what surprises we will get in the future.