The Best Zoo Moments

pendraig_milnerae

pendraig_milnerae

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
Alrighty, a thread probably already exists for this, but I think it’s worth a try nonetheless. I was just wondering what are some of the best and most memorable moments zoochatters have had at zoos in their lives?

For me it’ll have to be my first visit to Port Lympne back in the summer of 2012, with my family. It had been a hot day but it cooled off a lot in the afternoon, and as we got to the tapir exhibit I recall my disappointment at them not being out as they were the animals I was most looking forward to seeing (this was before I really got into zoos, but still had an interest, and at this point I’d only seen the T. terrestris at Bristol). When we got to the tapir house (this might not be 100% accurate, this was over 8 years ago now) my dad commented to one of the keepers about the tapirs not being out, the rest of my family had gone on ahed towards Palace of the Apes, and I think they converted for a few minutes. After that, the keeper actually let the two of us come into the tapir house to see them, including a calf that was only a few months old, and we were in there for a good while talking about tapirs and looking at some of the most wonderful animals in the world (let’s face it, with tapirs you can’t really dispute that), and looking back I think it was one of the moments that really catalysed my passion for wildlife, and really stuck with me for years.

I was merely wondering if other zoochatters have had similarly impactful moments.
 
Really good question actually.

I wouldn't say one in particular but rather many moments spread out across the course of my life as both a visitor to zoos and working within them.

Many of my earliest memories of visiting zoos with my grandparents and parents and siblings are very dear memories indeed.

As there are too many to mention I'll just mention a fairly recent one that turned out to be very auspicious for me indeed.

When I started working at Sorocaba zoo a few years ago I remember immediately being captivated by a little marmoset of a species that I had never seen before that was very vocal in making its high pitched call in an enclosure.

I remember thinking (in an anthromorphic way of course) that it had this sort of gothic type look with the strange white palid face, red lips as if smeared with lipstick, big hair and denser fur and I remember thinking "What a funny looking little monkey, it looks like Robert Smith from 'The Cure' ".

I remember that I immediately felt an affection for this species , I learned then that it was the buffy tufted marmoset, I read more and more about it and its conservation status which was getting ever worse over time.

Eventually I got involved in its conservation and now here I am a few years on and totally involved in the conservation of this species so from that moment on that little Callitrichid has become a big part of my life.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Really good question actually.

I wouldn't say one in particular but rather many moments spread out across the course of my life as both a visitor to zoos and working within them.

Many of my earliest memories of visiting zoos with my grandparents and parents and siblings are very dear memories indeed.
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That makes sense. And I agree that a large part of it is lots of smaller moments, but I still think that many of the people on here must have at least one or two similar moments, given the relative frequency of which they visit zoos.
Also I accidentally spelled conversed as converted, my bad!
 
Paleoarchontas said:
That makes sense. And I agree that a large part of it is lots of smaller moments, but I still think that many of the people on here must have at least one or two similar moments, given the relative frequency of which they visit zoos.
Also I accidentally spelled conversed as converted, my bad!
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I think that probably every single zoochatter has had one or many of those moments when they have felt a sense of affinity with an animal or have a cherished memory of a zoo visit.

Hopefully some of them will comment on this thread and share their experiences.

I have no idea how old you are but have you considered going on to study the Malayan tapir or to do something related to its conservation?
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
I think that probably every single zoochatter has had one or many of those moments when they have felt a sense of affinity with an animal or have a cherished memory of a zoo visit.

Hopefully some of them will comment on this thread and share their experiences.

I have no idea how old you are but have you considered going on to study the Malayan tapir or to do something related to its conservation?
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The thought has occurred to me but I’ve already started down a path of palaeontology (I won’t say how far along for privacy reasons)
 
Paleoarchontas said:
The thought has occurred to me but I’ve already started down a path of palaeontology (I won’t say how far along for privacy reasons)
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Ah I see, well that is also a very interesting career path but don't forget the tapir and your affinity for it, there may come a time when you may be able to help in its conservaiton.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Ah I see, well that is also a very interesting career path but don't forget the tapir and your affinity for it, there may come a time when you may be able to help in its conservaiton.
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I do hope so, and given that they are both biological sciences at least a little bit of the knowledge may be applicable to living species, from Miotapirus to Tapirus, if you will
 
I think one that comes to mind didn’t actually happen while I was at the zoo but I was in fact watching a webcam, I do this a lot as I can’t get to zoos all too often. I’ve watch the lion cam at Edinburgh quite a lot and I’ve watched the Cubs grow and a few weeks back I saw the three of them sneak up on a magpie and catch it, I was so proud of them :D, what adds even more to it was that about 7 months previously I watched one attempt to catch a pigeon and fail.
 
TinoPup said:
They're my second favorite species, so it was especially cool to see. It happened so quickly, I wasn't able to get any photos. I've had a lot of luck with seeing the Smithsonian boys out and about!
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It is really lucky to have seen that kind of behaviour @TinoPup

I've never seen them hunt their prey in the wild (only feeding on fruit and chicken bones at Santuario Caraca) or in captivity either.
 
A zookeeper allowing me to go into the enclosure and feed Asian Forest tortoises at the Minnesota zoo 20 mins till closing time.

Seeing an active banded palm civet running around its exhibit at the Cincinnati zoo would count too.

And a budgie almost escaping at Reptileland, and snatching it carefully before it could fly anywhere farther than outside the front doors.
 
I think that my most cherished zoo memories are of family visits to London Zoo when I was a very young child in the late 1950s / early 1960s. As I've mentioned elsewhere on ZooChat, it was these childhood visits to London Zoo, back in the days when it had one of the world's greatest animal collections, that inspired my interest in zoology and my love of zoos.

In particular, I have very vivid memories of the common hippos at London Zoo which were always my favourite exhibit there when I was a small child.

It's difficult to select just a few but other notable zoo memories include seeing my first:-

  • Sumatran rhinoceros (Port Lympne)
  • Jentink's duiker (Berlin Tierpark)
  • aye-aye (Vincennes, Paris)
  • proboscis monkey (Cologne)
  • South American river dolphin (Duisburg)
  • shoebill (Frankfurt)
  • hoatzin (Bronx)
 
Hmmm... some that come to my mind..
-When I got a magnific wing feather from Kagu at the Menagerie/Jardin des Plantes where I traveled especially for the Kagus. (I was in full feather collector fever then, now passed away)
-When a curator very friend of mine let me enter in the backside of the Baby's enclosure for viewing him close up (I could have touched it if the dolphin wanted, but he didn't).
-When another staff friend guided me to the behind-the-scenes part of Prague zoo, especially when I saw my first Lears macaws here.
-The orca show at Loro Parque.
-Any moment where I saw an especially exciting species and obtained enough decent photos of it. Too many for name them.
 
Tim May said:
In particular, I have very vivid memories of the common hippos at London Zoo which were always my favourite exhibit there when I was a small child.
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As I've mentioned before, I can sort of remember them too, but the appalling smell in their house is what I remember most from all those years ago. It must have made a big impact. I can even remember other visitors come out of there with handkerchiefs over their faces!
 
Most of my memories are from Lincoln Park Zoo, which is the one I've been to most often.

Back in 1997, the zoo's Siberian tigers Sheba and Sikhote had three cubs. After they went on exhibit, one of the cubs was sitting at the viewing window while Sheba was a bit in the distance. The cub licked her lips, put her paw on the glass, and then turned back to look at its mother. I always thought that was kind of adorable.

I've always loved the zoo's white-cheeked gibbons, particularly Caruso, who sadly recently passed away. He LOVED people and he loved performing for them. You'd almost always find him swinging from his exhibit with one arm and sucking his thumb with the other arm. I don't know his story prior to coming to Lincoln Park Zoo (he'd been there since 1993) but I think he knew he was entertaining. His first offspring, Kien Nan, was actually born on my 13th birthday.

And when I visited the Henry Doorly Zoo for the second time in 2018, I saw African elephants for the first time in years. They've always been one of my favorite animals, but I'd always been afraid of them in zoos for some reason. At Henry Doorly I saw an entire herd, including what I'm pretty sure was the first real-life bull elephant I've ever seen. I spent about 10-15 minutes just at that exhibit watching them.
 
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