This thread took a strange turn from a talk about big brother surveillance to how many children may be fooling around here between school and soccer practice. Mainly thanks to Dawn B of course, a known thread spoiler that often takes threads out of context or makes them as long as an Anaconda with her determined "my opinion shall be yours too" approach and attitude.
I'm 29 years old so I'm not one of those little brats, but I was once, and I was so touched by ZYBen's story of how his zoo life came to be that I decided to tell mine, whether you like it or not
I became interested in zoos through family visits during holidays abroad; Iceland is not a zoo country as its thread on Zoochat will suggest. Relatives would also show me photos from their zoo visits abroad and occasionally give me them and guidebooks. But up until I was 19 I was convinced that I had to be the only zoo enthusiast in the world, I had never met anyone else interested in zoos. Until then, upon being asked what my hobbies were in Iceland, and if I dared to say zoos, what I got was a few forced and strange questions about zoos and animals as well as a strange "poor eccentric ******" look.
But in 2000 I discovered the website of a German zoo enthusiasts group called Zoo-AG. I wrote to them in my poor English and got a response from the leader. He was kind to me, told me interesting news from the zoo world, even sent me surplus guides and brochures. He also told me about the annual meeting of European collectors of zoo memorabilia, which I then attended the following year. In 2002 I went on my first Interrail trip around Europe with the sole purpose of visiting zoos and meeting zoo people. I was welcomed everywhere; in Antwerp, Belgium; Cologne in Germany; Arnhem in the Netherlands and elsewhere. Those I met were often a bit older but so understanding and helpful to this shy young bloke who lacked all the knowledge they had been able to gather since childhood, through books and material I didn't even know existed, much less had. I was so shy in those years and my English was so bad, still their friendship, for they knew how it was to have an eccentric hobby, even if they came from countries with abundance of zoos.
My views have changed over the years and I have learned to be more social, accept when I'm clearly wrong and be careful with what I say. But this I learned the hard way. I recall one occasion during the 2001 zoo memorabilia meeting in London. That summer I had visited the Selwo Safari Park in Spain, a newish establishment at the time, and in London I showed photos which fellow attendants looked at with interest. I commented on the tiger enclosure (a spacious valley with a number of hiding places) that it had to be bad as the tigers were pacing. A fellow member said carefully "well, they could have picked up the habit in the zoo they were in previously". It hurt to be proven wrong; well, I guess I was wrong because it seemed logical, with the safari park being new and all. When we are young, there is nothing we hate more than being proven wrong, and some even never change that attitude. But being corrected is not the end of the world but a chance to learn and better yourself. I see it that way today at least.
It needs not be said that I have made my mistakes and said absurd things, here on ZooChat and on its preceding chief zoo enthusiasts melting pot, Yahoo groups Zoo-Historians and Zoo-Collectors. What I have said will forever exist in the Yahoo archives and on Zoochat and I will have to bite the bullet and accept that I said those things. But what matters is that I have matured and become more knowledgeable. And the end justifies the means.
Provided the younger members here show will to mature, learn and accept that they may not always be right (hard when you're under 20
let us welcome them on Zoochat. I for one do not know where I'd be if I had not been given the chances I've had and been the beneficiary of the patience that I have been.
