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

RatioTile said:
When I ask them, they usually have heard of goldfish but not koi. Asian Americans are more likely to know what carp/koi are.
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Great Argus said:
That's a weird one to me, virtually all the local pet stores carry koi on the regular, and there's a few places with koi ponds. Carp are definitely less well known, but I've never observed koi to be anywhere near the level of unknown you're describing.
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I was about to say, in my experience most people know what Koi are. Maybe it's a city thing, since as mentioned people in cities like NYC are less likely to have access to Koi. I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't know what Koi were, though to be fair I don't know how often Koi come up in my day-to-day conversations with most people :P

RatioTile said:
At Shedd Aquarium and St. Louis Zoo, kids automatically thought the Lesser Sirens were axolotls, probably because of Minecraft spreading awareness of that species. The same goes for the mudpuppy at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.
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The lake association that maintains the series of lakes in Maine my fiancé's family visits every year always has one or two tanks with mudpuppies in their HQ building. They're an introduced species, which the signage discusses, but people like seeing them. Just the other day I heard someone say how they've always wanted to see a mudpuppy, and then proceeded to call the animal an Axolotl when they actually saw it...

~Thylo
 
As a volunteer at our local zoo I have many stories of some things guests say and do. As a zoo that has bonobos which have unique ways of keeping tension low in the troop (they have lots of sexual behavior-all the time) we have had visitors ask us to make them stop because it is embarrassing to watch or they don't want to expose their kids. (rolls eyes). Probably the most common common is they want animals to be active (still entertainment aspect of zoo) so they tap on glass, shout at the animals, some even try to get in the habitats to get up close and personal. All behaviors that get one removed from the zoo. We also have free ranging peacocks and pea hens and chasing them to get a feather from the peacocks is a behavior that gets tiresome. I usually remind the moms that the feather can carry lice and that usually gets the parents to stop that behavior.
 
I remember, during my visit to the Berlin Zoo, in the "World of Birds" house, a family speaking English was laughing while reading an educational sign about a species of fruit dove (I don't remember which one), because, according to them, it was both a bird and a fruit...o_O

Also, something that seems strange to me as a Frenchman, but some visitors were walking around barefoot. I don't know what the rules are in Germany, but in France, most zoos don't allow that.
 
Tamandua56 said:
I
Also, something that seems strange to me as a Frenchman, but some visitors were walking around barefoot. I don't know what the rules are in Germany, but in France, most zoos don't allow that.
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We have people during the summer months who attend our zoo shoeless. Often they are part of a certain religious group and when we mentioned it to our administration they took a hands off aspect because fear (I think) of their religion and being called our as religious intolerant, which seems ridiculous to me. It's a health issue for both them and our other guests and has nothing to their religious faith.
 
peruvianbirdie said:
2) People throwing coins inside exhibits with water
(I remember seeing coins on top of a Tomistoma and water at LA)
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DaLilFishie said:
I've never seen this in a zoo or aquarium, but it's very common with ornamental fish ponds...
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Taronga’s Wetlands Aviary comes to mind (albeit with koi karp in the same space of water).

Historically, I’ve seen coins in otter exhibits, but not so much these days.

Crocodile/alligator exhibits remain popular targets, with many zoos attempting to deter visitors from throwing items in with signage ‘warning’ them they’ll be ask to retrieve anything thrown; or simply asking them not to do it.

Auckland Zoo:

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Going through my photo album, actually took a photo of these two instances at Los Angeles Zoo.
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Plant (unknown species). June 2022
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Tomistoma exhibit. February 2020
 

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peruvianbirdie said:
1) People graffitiing on botanics/plants (noticed this on the large ferns (?) at Los Angeles Zoo)

The past week I was at the San Diego Zoo and saw someone doing this on one of the bamboos by the Panda habitat. I was totally shocked because they took a selfie while doing it. Can you say stupid? We reported them and shared a photo we took of them. They were in their 20s and really should have known better.
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Zoofan15 said:
Taronga’s Wetlands Aviary comes to mind (albeit with koi karp in the same space of water).

Historically, I’ve seen coins in otter exhibits, but not so much these days.

Crocodile/alligator exhibits remain popular targets, with many zoos attempting to deter visitors from throwing items in with signage ‘warning’ them they’ll be ask to retrieve anything thrown; or simply asking them not to do it.

Auckland Zoo:

View attachment 836758
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Can confirm about the coins, and object-throwing at alligators. On socials a while back, there was a post from Auckland Zoo about alligator Dixie (I believe that's her in your photo) having to be brought into the veterinary hospital because she was believed to have swallowed a child's rubber shoe that was thrown into her habitat (staff found no trace of the offending object, so all was well, thankfully).

And last year there was an incident where people threw coins into the kea exhibit's water feature - I remember that day well, because I was visiting the ape exhibits at the time and there was a miscommunication somewhere, so the message keepers got was "people are throwing coins at Kera" (Auckland Zoo's female siamang gibbon) which brought out frazzled primate keepers to recall the siamang pair!
 
peruvianbirdie said:
2) People throwing coins inside exhibits with water
(I remember seeing coins on top of a Tomistoma and water at LA)
Click to expand...
DaLilFishie said:
I've never seen this in a zoo or aquarium, but it's very common with ornamental fish ponds...
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Back in the day, wishing wells were a thing. People were encouraged to throw coins in for "good luck" and the coins were collected to support whoever put the wishing well in. I believe they could be quite lucrative, and I can remember seeing them in some zoos. Thus, people would throw coins into any body of water, especially if they could see coins there already. Much less common now, as fewer people carry change.

Graffitiing plants is weird and also worrying if it catches on.
 
DaLilFishie said:
I fear it's already caught on... the bamboo at my local botanic gardens is absolutely covered in people's names and initials. I've heard of incidents of people scratching their names into live corals when snorkelling too...
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Funny you say that, I was just at my local botanical gardens this week and also noticed a LOT of the trees and bamboo marked with peoples names and initials.

It's not anything new though by any means. Melbourne Zoo's little bamboo forests along their Gorilla Rainforest and Forests of Wonder trails have always had their bamboo covered in names/initials for as long as I can remember.
 
At Chester 2 days ago loads and loads of schoolkids of all ages were about. Some of the older ones singing loudly scaring the smaller animals to scurry away in their hiding places, teachers not teaching not to do that.
(I know not all teachers are like this, before anyone jumps at me, but at that moment, those few of them were)
 
Zoofan15 said:
Taronga’s Wetlands Aviary comes to mind (albeit with koi karp in the same space of water).

Historically, I’ve seen coins in otter exhibits, but not so much these days.

Crocodile/alligator exhibits remain popular targets, with many zoos attempting to deter visitors from throwing items in with signage ‘warning’ them they’ll be ask to retrieve anything thrown; or simply asking them not to do it.

Auckland Zoo:

View attachment 836758
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They had this at Hertfordshire zoo(at the time Paradise wildlife park) in their Dwarf Crocodile exhibit a while back, with the sign stating, I am a real animal, not a statue, please do not use me as a wishing well
 
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