Funniest thing you have seen at a zoo

W

Weasle

Member
Went to Pretoria zoo on field trip for my bsc zoology and after we had time to wander around. Stopped at the duiker enclosure to desperately try spot the tiny thing in a planted enclosure. Next thing huge rat (probably Rattus norviticus?) comes running aross the enclosure and hot on its tail is the duiker:eek:. I read they omnivores but that was the first time I believed that they eat rodents and lizards.
 
I've had a similar experience. While at Lowry Park Zoo, at the Reeve's Muntjac exhibit, I saw a muntjac chase a gray squirrel. I heard they were carnivorous at times but I didn't really think much about it.
Another funny thing I've had happen to me at a zoo is when a lion tried to pee in my face at Busch Gardens Tampa:eek: (thank goodness for glass!;)). Also, while at the Bronx Zoo, I put my hand on the glass at the gorilla exhibit. A female gorilla rubbed her head on the glass after. Then when I smiled, she stuck her tongue out at me:p!!! It was so funny, until she puked into her hand and then ate it.:eek:
 
Kibriah (female twycross orang) lobbing a headless pigeon at the public. She was totally deadpan (even by orang standards) apart from a satisfied glint her eye.
 
The old Children's Zo at London Zoo had a nocturnal house. The first enclosure had aardvarks and bushbabies. The aardvarks were obvious, but the aardvark notice wasn't. One visitor asked what the large animals were. Another person said they were bushbabes and that they leapt from tree to tree. I would like to see an aardvark do that without injury.
 
About 30 years ago I was in Haifa Israel. I was in the US Navy at the time. I went up the very steep hill to Mount Carmel. My research indicated that there was a marine institute there and I wanted to see it. My path took me past the zoo and right past a tiger. I was perhaps 100 feet or more from the tiger when it made things very clear that it didn't want me to walk along that path. It was making extremely fearsome snarls and growls and, if looks could kill, I would now be a dead man. The cage was an old style cage with thick bars and some mesh. The path lead past the cage at a distance of less than 10 feet. There was some waist high shrubbery at the edge of the path.

I decided discretion was the better part of valor and detoured around the tiger at a great distance. Then I heard behind me the voices of 4 teenagers, 2 girls and 2 boys. Again the tiger began making all manner of fearsome noises. The girls were terrified but of course one boy, doubtless turned stupid by macho testosterone and realizing there was no way the tiger could get him, laughed and swaggered down the path getting closer and closer to the now enraged tiger. I stopped to watch and simultaneously eyeballed some nearby trees wondering how fast I could climb one.

He came abreast of the tiger. He laughingly looked away from the tiger and back to his friends when, in a microsecond, the tiger swapped ends. It did a 180 degree turn and from its back end ejected an enormous stream of yellow urine. It looked like a fire hose and its aim was dead on. That boy was drowned. His friends laughed hysterically and so did I. There's one thing you should always remember: respect a tiger and never, ever torment one.
 
On a quick trip through the Lisbon Zoo a month or so back, for the second time this year, I watched as a female gibbon fed her young cub a leafy branch of some sort. A slightly older cub came up and tried to yank the branch away from the first, until the fed-up mother slapped her knuckles into his face to drive him away.

The first time there this year, I also witnessed the curious sight of that same young cub trying insistently to climb up the rungs of a ladder he couldn't reach and keep falling to the grass below, while the mother tried to drag him away at regular intervals but he just wouldn't budge from his attempts.
 
A little orangutan at the Henry Doorly Zoo climbing along the fence in its enclosure. It reached its hand out and snapped its fingers and then beckoned. Nobody did anything so it climbed into its tree and pouted.
 
I wasn't there but one time one of the chimpanzee's was flinging poop and it got over the rail onto the visitor deck.
 
I think my funniest zoo moment was one about 25 + years back at Chester zoo and this one too involves poo!!. I was there with my Mum and Dad and about 10 ish myself at the time. It was in the Tropical House. In those days the zoo kept gorillas in the tropical house in this particular area (they keep Great and Rhinoceros Hornbills there now). I clearly recall this Gorilla getting vocal, running then people scattering in all directions from where we where viewing and nearly getting knocked over by adults. It turned out of course that this Gorilla had been flinging its poo at the crowd of people who it clearly had taken exception to. Funniest thing of all is that it got my dad right on his shoulder, but he didn't notice at first just saying that the smell wouldn't go away, when he noticed a few moments later he was washing it off in the fish pond in the tropical house with at first a leaf or two then tissues he scrounged off a passer by. It still amuses me all these years on, as my brother pointed out to him, a bit higher and to the right and it would have gone in his mouth :eek: :D
 
This wasn't the funniest thing I've ever seen but it was mildly amusing. Check out the orangutan on the right:

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/6334604886/"]IMG_4548 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

He's totally bored and disinterested. I decided to get a closer look at him:

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/6333852831/"]IMG_4550 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

He perked up a little when he noticed he was the focus of attention. I walked down the hill to a Plexiglas viewing area. While I was walking down the hill he came rocketing down and met me there:

[ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80431173@N00/6333864223/"]IMG_4555 | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

What a ham!
 
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