General Zoo Misconceptions

mazfc said:
I have to say that if someone said that to me I'd pretty annoyed too, and whilst I definitely wouldn't use the f word or be aggressive I'm not sure I could resist a little wind-up either.
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Agreed. Wrong choice of words. IMO a better approach would to point out the sign, then point the guest in the direction of the actual Anacondas (the zoo me and brooklynboy volunteer at has 2 large Anacondas) and maybe explain the visual and ecological(?) differences.
 
I heard an interesting one.

Walking by elephant exhibit, where a sign says "Elephant Painting 2:00"

Her response "thats animal abuse"

Dont know rather to laugh or be angry
 
Today by Chesters mixed warthog and banded mongoose exhibit. Visitor, "I can't see either the warthogs or the banded monkeys."
 
Kid looking at silverback gorilla - "So could he hurt you"
Dad "Definitely"
Kid looking at female gorilla - "So could he hurt you"
Dad "Yes, he could"
Kid pointing at 2 1/2 month old baby gorilla just beginning to hold his head up and look around - "So could he hurt you"
Dad "I think he could give you a good run for your money"
 
Maguari said:
Mixed exhibits always seem to confuse some visitors. The idea that there migt be more than one type of animal in there seems not to occur to them, even if there are very plainly two different labels.


This also works the other way around. At the San Diego Zoo the are 2 grizzly brothers and a Manchurian brown bear which alternate in 2 adjoining exhibits, and therefore have the signs for both species in front of both exhibits. While at the exhibit which the grizzly brothers were occupying, 2 women were arguing about which was the grizzly bear and which was the Manchurian brown bear.
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As Karoocheetah mentions in a Chester Zoo thread, I overheard someone in the Welsh Mountain Zoo last week..

'Oh, these are those cappuccino monkeys!'
They were Emperor Tamarins


As a rule, if we hear someone talking along the lines of
'I think these are hyenas? Maybe?' We might say 'They're African Painted Dogs' (We're Chester Zoo regulars)
But if someone just declares what they are and doesn't look like they want to be corrected we'll say nothing and leave them be.
 
I volunteer at the Honolulu zoo ,and I was pleasantly suprised last week.

I had brought the sloth out to the front of his cage ,for feeding ,along with the fact that it allows the public to get a good look at him. A small group of moms with young children came up and seemed pleasently suprised to see someone in a cage ,and "playing" with a sloth ,non-the less. They asked me some simple questions "e.x : What are you feeding him ?? ,whats his name ?? ,stuff like that" Then another question was asked. "How many teeth does he have ??" So a told them of the sloths family classing ,and how many teeth he has. They seemed generally interested in what I was telling them. I was happy to see that she had taken the time to notice the sloths dental uniqueness ,and the interest taken in one of the "less facinating" zoo animals.

Of course about 15 minutes before I was in the cage with the birds of paradise ,and an older asian man walked up and seemed very determined that we were giving inside tours of the cages ,and made it clear that he wanted in :rolleyes:
 
I don't know if it has been mentioned before (don't feel like reading 22 pages...) but I heard a mom tell her son that if he doesn't work hard in school he will end up cleaning poop for the rest of his life like the zoo keepers working in the zoo. I don't know, but all the zookeepers I know have some type of college/university education. I know being a zookeeper is a tough job, but that does not mean that they didn't go/finish school.
 
mstickmanp said:
I don't know if it has been mentioned before (don't feel like reading 22 pages...) but I heard a mom tell her son that if he doesn't work hard in school he will end up cleaning poop for the rest of his life like the zoo keepers working in the zoo. I don't know, but all the zookeepers I know have some type of college/university education. I know being a zookeeper is a tough job, but that does not mean that they didn't go/finish school.
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Yep, that's point 5 in this handy blog post:

Six things Zookeepers wished you knew
 
Dude that's a brilliant blog, may have to send that to practically everyone who's mocking me for my future career choice. ;)
 
In the space of a minute today at Paignton I heard the Marabou Storks being called vultures and pelicans. Then the meerkats were called chipmunks - if there was one species that the British public could name you'd think it would be the meerkat. Compare the Chipmunk.com?

And further to Maguari's comment above:

"What purpose have they come for that means the kid can't look at the terns? I suspect this is the old 'birds don't count' mentality." -

I was in the walk-through aviary recently when a couple hurried their child through saying "They're just ducks. We can see ducks at home." :rolleyes:
 
I was recently at the hyena enclosure at Colchester zoo, where there is a sign explaining the different species in the hyena family and a family wanders up... The mother looks at the sign for aardwolf and she says to her kids... Well that's rubbish it's pronounced aardvark!! I just had a little chuckle to myself
 
I went to Bristol Zoo the other day and whilst standing watching the fur seals from the underwater tunnel, a young guy (probably around the age of 20) walked in and exclaimed “Wow! They're in 3D!”
 
A man standing in front of the lion tailed macaque exhibit (located on sun bear trail) telling his son "Look at the little bears, they are called sun bears because the fur around their face looks like sun rays."
 
Reading the rat survey thread has just jogged my memory, a few years ago London Zoo kept meerkats on the Cotton Terraces free roaming at the giraffe house, I remember one lady commenting to her fellow visitors,"bloody hell they've got rats, and look at the size of them".
 
Someone last week at London Zoo pointed out that 'the crane is escaping' from Penguin Beach. The 'crane' was a heron.
 
Everyone always asks if our Alligators are fake. I always chuckle because our Alligator exhibits are the biggest in the reptile wing, with a waterfall, skylights, and fancy basking lights, with a huge water area and a land platform, and a few hundred fish. It's funny to think that someone would think that a zoo would build an exhibit like that only to float 2 giant foam Alligators around :D
 
One of my favorite animals is the pygmy slow loris...I've heard it called "baby chimp," elephant shrew and Pallas' Cat (both due to signage), and - my personal favorite - "wingless bat."
 
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