As a spin-off to the sheep and fox thread that dealt with fairly mundane animals.
Let’s keep it to ‘seen in the wild’ rather than in a zoo. For me, the rarest would have to be a black rhinoceros that we saw at a pretty good distance in Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. At that time, there were only about 2400 left in the wild. We were also lucky enough to encounter a pack of wild dogs and a honey badger (who really didn’t give a fuck). I’ve also seen polar bears in the wild on Barter Island, Alaska.
I found an ocelot in my attic once. The neighbors downhill from us had several and one got out; it found its way up the hill and climbed into our attic. We called animal control and they showed up with the owners & a big cage and carried it off.
In the wild, a definite sighting of a pine marten, and a possible sighting of a Scottish wildcat. I rather doubt the latter, as there are so few purebreds left outside captivity, but the cat we saw was a close relative, certainly.
Inside the house, a pipistrelle flew in through the open front door once, panicked and hid itself in one of the rooms. I coaxed it out carefully with a piece of paper and a pint glass. Y’know what, bats are beautiful wee things when you get a close look at one of them.
One day at the Grand Canyon a decade or so ago, I saw a whole bunch of condors. At least 10. They were hanging out right below one of the inns where I went to get coffee, with numbered tags on (IIRC) their wings.
I’m not sure how common such gatherings were/are, but some things I read since suggested that while you might see condors at the canyon, you couldn’t just expect to see a bunch of them close enough to hit them with a rock.
Not sure if that qualifies as a “wild” sighting as they’d been released, but I likely saw a sizeable percentage of the species that morning over coffee!
In June 1985, I saw a wild California Condor in the Los Padres National Forest. At the time there were only 9 left in the wild. 2 years later they were extinct in the wild. Strangely, I haven’t seen any in the wild since the reintroduction program began.
I was helping out on a school camp once, out in the bush solo waiting for a group of hikers to go by. Just sitting quietly on a rock when a Lyrebird jumped up onto a nearby log, called a few times and then jumped down again - made my day :).
Only time I’ve ever seen one in the wild in it’s entirety, I did catch a quick glimpse of a tail in the same area about a year before.
Saw a big white wolf outside of the hut I was staying at in Pangboche in Nepal. Way above the tree line at around 13000’ (4000 m.)
Two young bobcats at the edge of the local park half a mile from my home in southern California.
Large troop of wild monkeys outside of Ranakpur in India. My wife and I watched them for over an hour. The interaction between the different age groups is amazing and very entertaining. Although we were less than 100 feet away, they didn’t seem to care we were watching them.
Large rattlesnake slithered by within a few inches of my feet. My girlfriend and I were sitting on a huge flat rock that had been in the sun just a few minutes before. I figured the snake couldn’t sense our presence because the rock was so much warmer than our body temperatures. Tahquitz canyon outside of Palm Springs, CA.
I worked with the New Zealand Wildlife Service for three years in the 1980s and saw some of the rarest birds in the world. In particular, I helped with the Kakapo (Owl Parrot) conservation program. A large, flightless, nocturnal parrot, at the time there were about 50 left in the world. I got to handle about 10% of the world population.
In 2006, while rafting down the Colorado River, we saw a huge desert bighorn ram standing majestically on a high outcrop. Later, we saw a group of condors circling above.
A few years ago, my wife and I went to Yosemite NP. When we were driving from Groveland to the B&B we were staying at a few miles out of town, in broad daylight, a mountain lion ran across the road.
I was driving and my wife was looking down at a map. I was like “Cat… Bob cat!! Er, Mountain Lion!!” Luckily she was able to look up and spot it, too, as it bounded up the 45 degree slope on the side of the road and out of view.
When we got to the park, we mentioned it one of the rangers. She said she’d been there 5 years and never even glimpsed one.
i occasionally see the endangered Cayman Islands Blue Iguana (Cyclura lewisi) in the brush across the road from my house. They have had it rough, having to compete with the invasive green iguanas as well and being hunted by feral dogs and cats. Nonetheless the blue iguanas have made quite a comeback thanks in large part to the Blue Iguana Recovery Program in the Botanic Park. They are no longer critically endangered.
And as a one time treat I saw a Caribbean Torpedo Ray (video link, not to the time I saw one, and not MY video) which is an extremely rare subspecies. I was leading the dive and tried to signal to my group but they seemed to not want to watch this rather ugly fish, instead favoring the extremely common parrot fish that were nearby.
Irrawady Dolphin in the Mekong River in Laos, apparently less than 100 left; to be honest I found the experience to be quite depressing since AFAIK there’s no prospects of that population surviving much longer.
I was once way out in the sticks outside Mt. Isa in Queensland with a geological survey team and was followed around for several hours by a young dingo.
He had obviously never seen a human before and was very curious, every time I walked to a new location he would trail along and then sit in the shade about 20 yards away and just watch what I was doing. When I got back to our vehicle I tossed him a bit of biltong I was carrying (call it a thank you for the company) and when the rest of the team arrived he trotted off.
Probably whooping cranes, several times in south Texas. Also Kirtland’s warble, several timesr in Michigan. Both species less than 500 alive in the world. Indian rhinoceros, less than 2,500. Florida Key deer, less than 800. All seen in the wild.
Hm. Nothing awfully rare. Sea turtles, eagle rays, and moray eels while scuba diving in Bonaire. Plenty of bald eagles–there’s a nesting pair on our neighbor’s property. And last weekend I saw wild orcas.
