Things people do that irritate you when you go to the zoo? #2

On a recent visit to longleat I saw a kid (around 10yrs old) spit at an armadillo which made it run away. His siblings/friends looked and laughed while his mother was looking away. This was just before feeding time and the armadillo hid so I didnt get to see him eat. I wanted to say something so badly but held it in, regrettably as he may have done it to more animals now.
 
JabbaFlabba said:
On a recent visit to longleat I saw a kid (around 10yrs old) spit at an armadillo which made it run away. His siblings/friends looked and laughed while his mother was looking away. This was just before feeding time and the armadillo hid so I didnt get to see him eat. I wanted to say something so badly but held it in, regrettably as he may have done it to more animals now.
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Disgusting behaviour by this visitor, I think that I would have definitely said something to this kid and his friends.
 
Fignewton said:
At a recent visit to a zoo there was a man trying to get a picture of some Golden-headed Lion Tamarins. They have a wire cage connecting them to an indoor area. There were two sitting in the wire part and the man was able to get pretty close to them. He kept making clicking noises to keep their attention. They both turned away and he reached out and started snapping at them right in their faces. They left after that and he moved on, but it usually annoys me when people make lots of excessive noises at animals and want them to just strike a pose for their picture.
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Sad to hear. This kind of behaviour can actually cause a lot of stress in callitrichids.

They are very highly strung animals, some species more than others (pied tamarins can become very ill as a result of stress for example).
 
EsserWarrior said:
That would annoy me too. The only species I ever mess with is kookaburras. I can't resist calling at them, they always call back!
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There are a fair number of other bird species as well that will similarly respond. Lots of times animals interact with visitors at their own will, and can lead to pretty cool experiences, which I imagine are also fairly enriching for the animals involved.
 
EsserWarrior said:
That would annoy me too. The only species I ever mess with is kookaburras. I can't resist calling at them, they always call back!
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Agreed. I have never seen a kookaburra before, but I have been trying to copy it’s call so when I do see one, I could try and see if they call back. I mean, in the past I have been able to replicate a zebra call, no kidding.
 
When I was at the zollman zoo recently, there where two younger boys that where quite obnoxious. They where howling at the wolf to get it to come to the fence, calling the American black bear “a thick boy”, and shaking the fence on the deer exhibit and threatening to throw their hats in the exhibit. There was also a guy complaining that you couldn’t pet the cattle.
 
You don't tend to hear it so often at zoos , but one thing that sort of irritates me is when you hear creationist type comments from visitors who are clearly of a religious mindset about how "god created this marvellous animal" etc which conveniently ignore evolution.

I don't like it for the same reason that I don't like hearing comments by Mormon tourists when visiting Pre-Colombian archeological sites in Mexico which claim that these were built by wandering Israelites. The same from people who have watched too much "ancient aliens" who talk about "evidence" of visits from little green men instead of the civilization that actually constructed them.

Basically it is an annoying imposition of their own worldview and religious or crackpot narrative. It is sort of dispiriting and depressing that they would not bother to do some background reading before or during their visit (especially when there are information signs right in front of them!) and that they do not like these ideas to be challenged.
 
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JigerofLemuria said:
Yeah, once Disney or another animated company makes an animated film about animals, it leads to some more or less cringey behaviour. I have a few more examples I've heard over the years:
- Singing "I like to move it, move it" when faced with lemurs
- Singing "We are Friends" when seeing vultures.
- Singing "Oobie doo, I wanna be like you" upon visiting the orangutans.
- Singing "Hakuna Matata" whilst observing warthogs or meerkats.
- Saying hyenas are bad animals based on their depiction in "The Lion King"
- Making clock noises when they see any type of crocodilian.
- Calling any light-bodied horned artiodactyl (deer, antelope, etc.) "Bambi" (this is the worst one...)
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I was showing my friend a photo of two baby nilgai, and she said "Don't correct me, it's a Bambi".
 
These all happened awhile ago, but they were all at Lincoln Park Zoo and on different occasions.

The first one was in the primate house. This woman was with two kids standing at the red-ruffed lemur exhibit. The woman tells the kids, "These are lem-yours. Do you see the lem-yours?" I subtly tried to correct her by saying aloud, "Wow, the lemurs look really cool today," but she didn't hear me/didn't care. Not a huge deal, and more amusing than annoying, but still notable.

Another time I was standing at the red panda exhibit, and I was actually recording a video of them. This woman behind me - who I don't think knew I was recording - says in a high, annoying voice, "What does the red panda say?" and then cracked up laughing. This was right after that song "What Does the Fox Say?" came out and I think she was trying to be funny. It wasn't.

The worst, though, was back in 2018 when I brought a friend of mine from out-of-state to the zoo. We were in the Small Mammal/Reptile House, which contains a small, dark cave where the fruit bats reside. The bats are behind glass and can't get to you, but these children on a field trip were all screaming bloody murder because they were afraid of the bats. I actually heard someone - don't know if it was a zoo staff member or a chaperone - telling the kids to be quiet, but they weren't doing so. That building is also a bit of an echo chamber, so you could hear the screaming throughout the main gallery.

In general, I also hate it when people point out when an animal relieves itself or starts mating. I remember at the zoo in Des Moines, the male ostrich relieved itself in front of a large crowd and everybody was all, "Ewwww!" and groaning.
 
PAKMan said:
The first one was in the primate house. This woman was with two kids standing at the red-ruffed lemur exhibit. The woman tells the kids, "These are lem-yours. Do you see the lem-yours?" I subtly tried to correct her by saying aloud, "Wow, the lemurs look really cool today," but she didn't hear me/didn't care. Not a huge deal, and more amusing than annoying, but still notable.
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At least they didn't call them monkeys.
 
RatioTile said:
I've belted out the entire DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64 in front of great ape exhibits before, albeit at a lower volume. Especially the lines about Lanky Kong in front of Singapore Zoo's Bornean Orangutan island.
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But have you recited the entire Bee Movie script (from memory) in front of a bee? I haven't, but I know someone who has.
 
This probably doesn't fit this thread but I remember in elementary school that kids in my class would always say there were anacondas at the North Carolina Zoo when I knew that the zoo only held species from North America and Africa. The large snake they were misidentifying was an African rock python in the old African Pavilion. No matter how much I tried to correct them that it was not an anaconda, they wouldn't believe me. It's one of those little insignificant things that still sticks with me to this day.
 
Honestly, I just have a thing where I don't get annoyed at people in zoos. If someone doesn't know an animal, I often just ignore them. Yeah, it's annoying but I think I recognise that other people just don't care as much about what the animal is and want to just see it. For example, if someone misidentified a python as an anaconda, I could realistically see why they made that mistake, because perhaps that individual isn't as well accustomed to the types of snakes. However, I would agree in saying that people need to know the basics of animals. For example, a person should probably know what a tapir looks like.
 
OstrichMania said:
Honestly, I just have a thing where I don't get annoyed at people in zoos. If someone doesn't know an animal, I often just ignore them. Yeah, it's annoying but I think I recognise that other people just don't care as much about what the animal is and want to just see it. For example, if someone misidentified a python as an anaconda, I could realistically see why they made that mistake, because perhaps that individual isn't as well accustomed to the types of snakes. However, I would agree in saying that people need to know the basics of animals. For example, a person should probably know what a tapir looks like.
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The problem with tapirs are that they aren’t represented in media much, except as unnamed background characters in the animated Ice Age movies. In Asia they are probably better known among the public than in the West. Japan in particular coincidentally had a mythic dream-eating creature described as porcine with an elephant-like snout called the Baku long before they knew of the existence of tapirs, so “Baku” and eating nightmares became associated with the real animal.
 
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