I’ve seen a Santa Cruz Island kit fox back before captive breeding when there was somewhere around 100 of them.
Not really exotic to me, but this was the view from my desk as I checked ‘The Dope’ this morning. Crappy cell phone picture through a sliding glass door. These are Roosevelt Elk and are mostly last spring’s calves, and their moms, called cows.
No, I wasn’t, and never managed to get out to the Chathams. Some of my colleagues , like Don Merton, were, however.
For those who don’t know the story, the Chatham Island Black Robin population was reduced to five birds, including only a single fertile female, living on the top of a tiny precipitous island. The NZ Wildlife Service managed to save it by taking eggs laid by the fertile female, carrying them to a nearby island, and putting them in the nests of a related species to be raised. When they were big enough they were brought back to the original island. The fertile female laid replacement eggs and in this way they were able to raise several batches of chicks each year.
That’s not a nutria. This is a nutria - compare the teeth. That looks like a river otter with a weird sneer.
The most exotic critters I’ve come across are probably some eelpouts and delicate little ctenophores dredged from deeper layers of Monterey Bay. Not commonly seen in the wild unless you’ve done some deep water trawling.
ETA: Oh and Dall’s Porpoises on the same trips as above - they liked to bow ride on the big research boat we were on. Not all that common for most, I guess.
Oh, and I guess either a coyote or a wolf at the Grand Canyon - to the side of the road near that McDonald’s there, opposite side. Pretty sure it was a coyote, as it had that mangy look - wolves are BIG.
How big was it? The ivory bill is (hopefully not was) a couple inches bigger, and the pileated itself is impressively huge. I haven’t seen it, but one lives in our neighborhood and my mother, who has seen it, is afraid of it. I’ve heard it though, the wiki description of it sounding like a hammer is 100% accurate.
While visiting the national parks here in Alberta, I’ve certainly encountered wildlife.
In Banff townsite (Banff National Park), elk wandering through town aren’t at all uncommon, though I’ve also encountered them elsewhere in the park. Up at Lake Minnewonka (Banff again), I encountered a few mountain goats while I was walking across a parking lot–they got curious and headed for me; and mindful of the park’s warnings not to approach wildlife, I figured the same held in reverse when wildlife approached me. I got back in my car and waited until they left before heading on my way.
I’ve also observed the Banff Springs Snail in its native habitat. An endangered species, it exists only in the sulphurous hot springs of Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park.
Waterton Lakes National Park is known locally for its deer population (heck, I see deer regularly in the coulees here in Lethbridge); but also for grizzly bears, and while I’ve never encountered a bear while hiking on the park’s trails, I have seen scat and other signs of recent bear activity.
I don’t know where your getting your range from, but there was a pair living across from the chemistry department in Eugene Oregon for as long as I was there. I saw them enough to know it wasn’t always the same pair.
Hammerhead shark, nurse shark, moray eel, eagle rays, octopus, flounder, rock lobster, starfish, lost dolphin calf, and many more while diving in Mexico.
Brown bear and wolves in the Rocky Mountains.
A gray fox on the outskirts of my home town.
Cougars and a Gila monster in the Davis Mountains in West Texas.
Hedgehogs in Prague.
This cheats a bit on the OP;
But I did encounter a Timber Wolf (nearly) in the wild.
Said wolf was prowling our fence (I was at a camp). The camp counselors called us all (quitely) to come take a look.
Bless them. Both for recognizing that this was a thing worth seeing, and also for keeping our fool adolescent mouths shut.
I was absolutely floored. I knew that wolves got big. I was probably 13 at the time, and larger and taller than average. This wolf was as tall as me.
The wolf itself was very calm. It looked at me briefly, then ignored me. No doubt a 13-year-old human isn’t much of a threat. This was through a chain-link fence but I was still nervous. After maybe 20 minutes it loped off into the forest.
Man, what a beautiful animal.
Well, let’s see. First thing that comes mind would be sea life offshore Angola. There were huge rays (I’m guessing 6-8 feet across, if that’s possible) that hung around the rig all the time. One memorable day a family (pod?) of whales came up to the rig and actually did a lap around it, checking it out.
I’ve seen all sorts of exotica in southern Africa, but since most of these were in wildlife preserves, I guess they don’t fit the OP’s criteria. Can I count getting charged by a baby rhino near Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe anyway?
Piranha by the hundreds of thousands in a lake in eastern Peru. Seriously, it was like a Piranha soup. A bright green snake with reddish eyes (I was later told those are highly poisonous) in Guatemala. Various kinds of brightly-colored parrot-like birds, and giant rhinocerous beetles, also in Guatemala.
Closer to home, moose and antelope in Colorado. A black bear crossing the road about ten minutes’ drive from my parent’s house in a suburb of Johnstown, PA.
I live near Houston and have begun making regular business trips to Southern Louisiana. Still haven’t seen a 'gator in the wild, however. Very disappointing.
I guess muskox, caribou, moose, dall sheep, grizzlies, porcupines, ptarmigan, beavers, river otters, and orcas might seem exotic if you aren’t from Alaska.
I’ve seen black and brown bear, coyotes, and bald eagles, all in Yellowstone (plus a few other places for the eagles). Plus bison, elk, assorted deer, and bighorn sheep, but those hardly count as exotic in Yellowstone: You can hardly enter the park without meeting all of those.
Thankfully, the bears were both from a considerable distance.
From my cousin’s porch near Sarasota: panther (mostly the green eyes, and we all got up and went inside quietly) and a much more cuddly armadillo in the daylight.
Loons on the lake in Maine at night. Weird.
Some people might consider the melanistic black squirrels that live in the backyard here in NYC exotic, but they’re pretty common around here.
Nice big raptors in Central Park.
Beautiful women who like geeky engineers. Truly rare finds.
Your cite actually disproves your claim that the duck shouldn’t have been there. Wood ducks live in both Oregon and Washington year round. Pretty little things, aren’t they?
Golden eagles aren’t that exotic, but they are hard to find, most of the time. We had a pair up above our house last Christmas. Bobcats are common enough on our driveway. I love bringing city kids home to our house and watch them gape at the quail and want to stop and watch deer.
Echidnas. Snakes. Wallabies. Pretty standard stuff.
I think I trod on some kind of ray or bottom dwelling fish one time, but we were both too scared to make a positive identification.
Great!
You wont have to hire the neighbor’s kid to mow your lawn.
Or to fertilize it.
In NZ, where I’m from, standard sightings include kea, weka, pukeko, weta, etc. Not exotic, or rare.
In AU, where I live now, I’ve seen kangaroos, echidnas, cockatoos, kookaburras, galahs, emus, all of which are not exotic at all.
But I did see a nest of sea eagles, once. They flew above us, circling the nest, and they came quite low so we got to see them up close. It was very impressive.
What’s exotic? I’ve been in contact or close to Right Whales, Great White sharks, elephants,rhinos, hippos, crocodiles,cobras, giraffes, naked mole rats, other mole rats, clawless otters, baboons, monkeys, penguins…
my favourite encounter was with a pair of cuttlefish, though.