The Worst Name Given to a Zoo Animal in History

With reference to the Hippo's name that started this thread, back in the colonial ere it was also used quite frequently by upperclass people as a name for their (black) pet dogs such as Labradors.

Returning to zoo animals; Often the name is 'in vogue' at the time of christening, but then becomes outdated and gets changed. For example in the past Blackpool named an orangutan 'Zowie' which in time they later changed to the more suitable 'Homer'. Dublin named a black rhino calf Ringo (after the Beatle) when he later moved to Howletts/Pl they added the prefix 'Ba' to make it suitably African-sounding instead.

A similar mistake is to give an animal a 'cute' or humorous name that fits it as a baby, but is unsuitable for an adult. E..g. Dudley currently have an Orangutan named Sprout- may have been okay as a baby but it seems a silly undignified name as she grows to maturity.
 
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Pertinax said:
A similar mistake is to give an animal a 'cute' or humorous name that fits it as a baby, but is unsuitable for an adult. E..g. Dudley currently have an Orangutan named Sprout- may have been okay as a baby but it seems a silly undignified name as she grows to maturity.
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Do animals really care about this?:p
 
Pertinax said:
similar mistake is to give an animal a 'cute' or humorous name that fits it as a baby, but is unsuitable for an adult. E..g. Dudley currently have an Orangutan named Sprout- may have been okay as a baby but it seems a silly undignified name as she grows to maturity.
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Eg. naming a hippo Cuddles! Quite an ironic name for the most dangerous mammal on the planet!
 
Pertinax said:
A similar mistake is to give an animal a 'cute' or humorous name that fits it as a baby, but is unsuitable for an adult. E..g. Dudley currently have an Orangutan named Sprout- may have been okay as a baby but it seems a silly undignified name as she grows to maturity.
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One of the silverback gorillas at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston is named Little Joe. The name was far more fitting when he was a juvenile. Some people still call him Little Joe, but now most people call him “Joe” for short.
 
Safari Niagara had (or possibly still has) a ferruginous hawk named Hitler. Just a guess, but I imagine its personality is a bit on the spicy side.
 
RhinoHippoElephantGiraffe said:
At Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich, Germany, a baby Common Hippo was born on August 10th, 1952. If you notice the animals name, then you'll know why the name was very inappropriate and unkind. It is the worst name given to a zoo animal in history. Here is the link:
Tierdetails
It was an extremely good decision for others zoo to rename him "Wiggerl" and "Dango".
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Edit: A random, rude, person on the Internet may have *hacked into hipposworld.de and put the name there, but that is probably not the case, because it was just the one animal with that name.
*I hope it WAS a hacker that did that, because any zoo (even in the 1950s, regardless of country) would be sued for naming an animal of any kind that name.
 
RhinoHippoElephantGiraffe said:
Edit: A random, rude, person on the Internet may have *hacked into hipposworld.de and put the name there, but that is probably not the case, because it was just the one animal with that name.
*I hope it WAS a hacker that did that, because any zoo (even in the 1950s, regardless of country) would be sued for naming an animal of any kind that name.
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Regrettably you have an incorrect grasp of history.

In the period during the war and in post war 1950s and later particularly in countries that had colonies that name was fairly common and what is clearly unacceptable racist crap now was normalised at the time. A pretty famous film of the WW2 dambusters featured the wing commander’s dog who was named that, for example. It appears offensive and slightly loony to many people now but times had to change a lot for that to happen.

Also if you are from the US I’d suggest the widespread use of that word got very few people sued even in your own country in the 1950s (and indeed a lot more recently - check the date when black people in some states were actually able to exercise the right to the vote or were allowed to attend particular colleges or allowed to sit on all bus seats or use the same drinking fountain as their white fellow Americans) and it’s worth reading up on the history of racism, racist acts and the positioning of those of non white skin colour by racists so you can best appreciate the importance of eliminating these prejudices for good.
 
One of HP Lovecraft’s stories features a cat named “N-man”… not saying that Lovecraft didn’t have his own racist issues going on, but no one in his era would have found that name unusual
 
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RhinoHippoElephantGiraffe said:
Edit: A random, rude, person on the Internet may have *hacked into hipposworld.de and put the name there, but that is probably not the case, because it was just the one animal with that name.
*I hope it WAS a hacker that did that, because any zoo (even in the 1950s, regardless of country) would be sued for naming an animal of any kind that name.
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Please brush up on your history.

A good place to start would be Rosa Parks - 1955 ... Rosa Parks - Wikipedia
 
MonkeyBat said:
Bindi obviously didn't watch S3E8 of "The Simple Life". Thought we'd learn to keep Paris Hilton away from zoos.
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I’ve never watched that series (or that episode for that matter), but will assume it involved her attempting to run the zoo in a manner inconsistent with the ethos and practices of an AZA accredited zoo.
 
MonkeyBat said:
Bindi obviously didn't watch S3E8 of "The Simple Life". Thought we'd learn to keep Paris Hilton away from zoos.
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When Paris attempted to try to run the Baltimore Zoo...she didn’t know anything whatsoever about zoos to say the least. That would explain why she gave Australia’s giraffe a similar name to her cats. :rolleyes:
 
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