JurassicMax
Well-Known Member
True, but it did boost their popularity among children.
What's something you heard at a zoo or aquarium from another guest that irritated you?
- Thread starter Davdhole
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True, but it did boost their popularity among children.
Also, tourists in zoos are often apathetic to wild animals on park grounds. For example, I pointed out to passing tourist families wild crab-eating macaques, water and clouded monitors, and a stork-billed kingfisher to passing families at Singapore Zoo, and none of them seemed to care too much, not even about the monkeys.
At the Sacramento Zoo, I once heard a girl repeatedly calling a chimpanzee stupid looking and it really bugged me. All could think was, "He's probably thinking the same thing about you." FYI this was an older girl, likely a preteen, so no I wasn't mentally bullying a little kid.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
That would be really quite interesting to find out. I suspect they have been popular animals for the public since zoos began keeping them in the early 20th century.
These primates have quite striking looks and some behaviours that people interpret anthromorphically like sunbathing etc. which would seem to be characteristics that increase the odds of becoming a "crowd favourite" species.
For most of the public they are the "iconic lemur" and though there are over 100 species of lemur it is only the ring tailed whose name and image seems to be well known to people.
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Sorry to bump a thread, but my trip to the zoo was full of odd comments
1. Someone called a tapir an anteater. I thought people doing that was a myth.
2. Some kid called an impala a reindeer
3. Someone called an orangutan a "big monkey"
4. An aardvark was called a "pig"
5. A springhaas was called a kangaroo, understandable considering it's lesser known
6. A kid went up to the blood python and called it an anaconda. I wasn't that concerned considering they are a bit similar to the average kid, but then he asked if it was a yellow or green anaconda
I was also quite annoyed by these yelling children in the aquarium. They were yelling and banging on the glass like that one girl from Finding Nemo
1. Someone called a tapir an anteater. I thought people doing that was a myth.
2. Some kid called an impala a reindeer
3. Someone called an orangutan a "big monkey"
4. An aardvark was called a "pig"
5. A springhaas was called a kangaroo, understandable considering it's lesser known
6. A kid went up to the blood python and called it an anaconda. I wasn't that concerned considering they are a bit similar to the average kid, but then he asked if it was a yellow or green anaconda
I was also quite annoyed by these yelling children in the aquarium. They were yelling and banging on the glass like that one girl from Finding Nemo
Go to the Barcelona Zoo some day; no visit passes without someone making that mistake, even with the actual giant anteater enclosure like 10 FEET AWAY!!
On another note, I think what I dislike hearing most are three things:
1- "The animal is sad/depressed/drugged", a classic for people of around 40 who haven't grown into adulthood.
2- "That crocodile is fake/stuffed", and no matter how much I try to convince them they're convinced it's all a con.
3- "Look at the ugly/disgusting/horrible/dangerous hyena/crocodile/snake", and yet the equally dangerous lions, tigers and bears don't get that kind of thrashing.
Go to the Barcelona Zoo some day; no visit passes without someone making that mistake, even with the actual giant anteater enclosure like 10 FEET AWAY!!
On another note, I think what I dislike hearing most are three things:
1- "The animal is sad/depressed/drugged", a classic for people of around 40 who haven't grown into adulthood.
2- "That crocodile is fake/stuffed", and no matter how much I try to convince them they're convinced it's all a con.
3- "Look at the ugly/disgusting/horrible/dangerous hyena/crocodile/snake", and yet the equally dangerous lions, tigers and bears don't get that kind of thrashing.
Why do people hate hyenas? Is the Lion King at fault, just like how Jaws led to an anti-shark sentiment?
Jake1508
Well-Known Member
They think hyenas are evil because of what happened in the Lion King and how “they rip things apart while they are still alive” Karen August 2020.
I think the hyena sentiment is similar to the sentiment the Jurassic Park characters have towards the fictional Velociraptors. Although in Jurassic World Pratt treats them as respectable creatures that you have to form a working relationship with, which is how keepers IRL view dangerous animals they work with.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
I think it predates the "lion king" but that particular film doesn't seem to have helped matters (nor have many natural history documentaries for that matter) .
Hyenas were viewed as freakish hermaphrodite animals in ancient times ( a misconception because of the large clitoris of the females) and have been viewed as despoilers of buried human corpses from ancient times right up until the present. Generally any mammal that is perceived to "direspect" human funerary rites is unfortunately going to be hated.
A lot of other characteristics don't help them like the spotted hyenas "giggling" call which sounds sinister to most people, their carrion / scavenging feeding habits and hunting tactics of disembowelling prey, mobbing of other feline predators and occasional fatal or disfiguring attacks on humans.
Beyond these Western perceptions of the animal there are many indigenous African cultures where the hyena is closely associated with witchcraft as "familiars" of witches / witchdoctors and / or shapeshifting entities which are greatly feared by the populace.
Jake1508
Well-Known Member
A lot of animals in zoos receive a bad rap because of their species in Tv, movies, and the internet. E.G
Large snakes are maneaters
Big cats are also maneaters
Crocodiles are well.... also maneaters
As a funny Australian Youtuber Issac Butterfield says
“Wakey, Wakey hands off snakey. Don’t play with f**king snakes”
Just curious, did the Honey Badger meme from 10 years ago have any impact on how the species is viewed? Did it lead to people wanting to see Honey Badgers in zoos (they are pretty rare in collections)?
That meme gave off the impression that Honey Badgers are both extremely dangerous and worthy of respect.
That meme gave off the impression that Honey Badgers are both extremely dangerous and worthy of respect.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
I dont know about zoos but I suppose it effectively introduced the ratel to many people who would have otherwise not known that this animal existed.
I remember being amazed to learn that Hyenas were active predators, and often robbed by lions back in the late 60s or early 70s based on research carried out by Hugo van Larwick in the Serengeti; prior to that all popular natural history books described them as scavengers. Come on guys, it’s a bit much to expect viewpoints to change in as little as 50 years!
Jake1508
Well-Known Member
Honey Badgers are like Thanos.... nuff said.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Yes, I remember reading something about that research too.
True, I think it takes a long time for the perception of an animal that is so intimately related in the human mind with death and bullying, cowardice and everything sinister to change. However, when it does I would prefer that we see these animals as they are and not as we would like to see them.
The latest cultural reinvention of the spotted hyena that I've seen is that it is a "hardcore feminist" animal because of its matrillineal and female dominated social structure. This sugar coated narrative of course neglects to mention that spotted hyena social dynamics are not at all utopic or a "sisterhood" and are in fact viciously competitive, nepotistic and violent in inter-female interaction.
It is just like with the bonobo "free love" / utopian thing that has become mainstreamed in popular culture as an appeal / naturalistic fallacy by people practicing polyamory and alternative New age / hippy / libertine alternative lifestyles. This narrative neglects the fact that pedophilia is a large part of bonobo sexuality and that incidents of violence and infanticide have also been recorded occurring. These are behaviours that presumably and hopefully these self declared "bonobo fans" would not advocate become the norm in society.
We humans always seem to see what we want to see through our cultural lenses so all of these views of course only reflect our own beliefs about the natural world and say nothing about the ecology of the actual animals themselves.
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I think it’s pretty interesting how snakes (feared by a plurality to majority of people in most countries) became the subject of a lucrative pet trade (ball python and corn snake morphs). It looks like a lot of snake keepers, esp. teenagers, do so as a cultural rebellion against parents afraid of snakes.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
Well I think some kids probably do this as a sort of cultural rebellion but I do think that there is also a fascination and attraction with this animal because of it being culturally taboo and sort of forbidden and in adolescence we tend to push and experiment with boundaries.
