First of all I'd like to thank random goat for the invite. I really do enjoy following this thread to keep track of community wishes, but I hadn't considered submitting a list of my own.
Since then, I have been thinking what could be done to make this list of mine unique and came up with an idea. Instead of personal picks, I decided to take
Zootierliste's Top 100 Holdings chart and filter out the following:
- Existing animals that are already in the game
- Aviary and exhibit animals (including sliders/terrapins), as per the rules of this thread
- Domesticated animals, as the list would have been dominated by domestic breeds
- Borderline exhibit/habitat animals like smaller tortoises, despite being allowed on this thread - I'd rather see what Frontier does with these first
- Fully aquatic animals, despite being allowed on this thread - again I'd like to see how these animals would be addressed
After this procedure, of the remaining animals, I took the first 25 to conjure up a list:
- Emu - 600 EAZA holdings
- Red-necked wallaby (no subspecific status) - 550 EAZA holdings
- Raccoon - 546 EAZA holdings
- Golden pheasant - 545 EAZA holdings
- Mandarin duck - 476 EAZA holdings
- (European) white stork* - 457 EAZA holdings
- (European) mouflon** - 453 EAZA holdings
- South American coati (no subspecific status)*** - 441 EAZA holdings
- Greater rhea (no subspecific status) - 426 EAZA holdings
- Black swan - 399 EAZA holdings
- African spurred tortoise - 368 EAZA holdings
- (Central European) wild boar - 357 EAZA holdings
- Silver pheasant (no subspecific status) - 352 EAZA holdings
- Wood duck - 347 EAZA holdings
- Patagonian mara - 322 EAZA holdings
- (Central European) red deer - 317 EAZA holdings
- Common marmoset - 314 EAZA holdings
- Common pheasant (no subspecific status) - 295 EAZA holdings
- (Common) mallard - 289 EAZA holdings
- Lady Amherst's pheasant - 281 EAZA holdings
- Cotton-top tamarin - 280 EAZA holdings
- Indian crested porcupine - 273 EAZA holdings
- Mute swan - 256 EAZA holdings
- European roe deer - 247 EAZA holdings
- Bar-headed goose - 243 EAZA holdings
*Since Zootierliste takes note of the subspecific status of animals in their Top 100 holdings chart and this thread prefers full species ranks, I've put common names for subspecies in parentheses. I couldn't ignore them entirely, since the figures are only for the aforementioned subspecies. When combined with other subspecies, the holdings increase quite a bit (e.g. in the case of the red deer this figure surpasses 500, when it is only 317 for the Central European red deer).
**Had to include common names for invalid and disputed subspecies, due to limitations concerning the website's holdings as explained above.
***When an entry has a "no subspecific status" note in parentheses, this means there are other subspecies defined on Zootierliste's system with separate holdings, so the total may actually be considerably higher (e.g. red-necked wallaby) than the figures specified on the list. Doesn't apply to entries without this note.
Sadly there is no English version of this particular page, so you'd have to translate it using your browser or a third party application if you don't speak German.