General Zoo Misconceptions

Has anyone else noticed that most people assume that all great apes are male?
I was at Twycross yesterday and I was struck once again by the comments of the people around me, "Oh look at him!" "He's a big fellow!" "He's an ugly one!" and so on.
Of course it's often quite obvious with chimps, even to the least observant visitor: but unless a gorilla or orang is hugging a tiny baby, it's automatically a male.

Alan
 
That's the norm with most animals I think, It's always "look at Him" for some reason...
 
gentle lemur said:
Has anyone else noticed that most people assume that all great apes are male?
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I've noticed it especially with large mammals, tigers, hippos, rhinos are all animals I have seen females refered to as, "Him"...

Fish and reptiles seem to be, "it" or "them"...
 
A few years ago when I was at Auckland Zoo , one of the elephant keepers was riding on one of the elephants , and a young lad next to me commented .....

...... I wonder how he get down off that elephant ?

remembering a joke which had a similar script , I replied to him -

-- he wont . he will get it off a duck
 
A couple of days ago at Chester, I was walking past the Chimpanzee house (officially called the 'Chimpanzee breeding centre') and I overheard a mother and daughter talking to each other:

Daughter: Oh can we go in there? *points to chimp house*
Mother: *reads sign* Oh I don't know, I want to see the chimps but I don't want to go into the breeding centre, I don't think it's appropriate...

I guess the mother was thinking that it would be some sort of ape sex show inside...
 
The "Chimpanzee Breeding Centre" is somewhate ironically named as they do not wish to breed any more chimps (for the time being anyway) and all the females are on contraceptive implants...
 
I probably have a warped sense of humour, but it's quite amusing to watch the reactions of the public when animals start mating.

Some are highly embarrassed ("Honestly, I didn't know where to put me face!")
Usually parents of small kids ("Mummy, what's that big monkey doing to that little monkey?" "Oh, it's just hugging/playing/having a ride, darling.") :D
 
Or they are giving piggy backs.
I grew up on a farm and that was what dad always told us.
 
Pygathrix said:
The "Chimpanzee Breeding Centre" is somewhate ironically named as they do not wish to breed any more chimps (for the time being anyway) and all the females are on contraceptive implants...
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That's daft...(the name that is) Why don't they change it to something relevant like 'Chimpanzee Colony' etc? Talk about misleading....
 
Do they plan to phase in a pure bred colony of Western chimps perhaps? I expect it will take many years if this is the case.
 
let's see.. we've had tourists mistake common house mice (there's been a lot of them breeding around the park =|) as spinifex hopping mice which is a reasonable mistake I guess, black-faced woodswallows as butcherbirds, spinifex hopping mice as frogs (maybe they didn't see the mice and thought the burrows belonged to spencer burrowing frogs?!?!) and the winner so far a woman exclaimed the echidna to be a turtle but then corrected herself and called it a tortoise...
 
Some people just have no interest in reading signs, I have spent many an afternoon at the zoos tapir enclosure listening the large list of species people think it is, this is understandible as its not a widely known species for the average zoo visitor but when you have people mixing up giraffe and zebra it can be frustrating especially when they are standing infront of a sign. At my local zoo they now keep spectacled bears where the polar bears used to be and still nearly 10 years on you hear people calling them polar bears lol:rolleyes:
 
You're right Nigripes;I'm always gob-smacked at how many people don't know what a tapir (of any species) is!
They all know what a hippo or a rhino is , but because there was no tapir in their "Child's ABC of Animals", people live and die without knowing that they even exist!
 
Its such a pity really, i did zoology at university and we had to do a presentation on anything! mine was on tapirs and about 2 out of aroud 120 people who were future biologists etc had ever heard of them! i was shocked!
 
And yet, from stories I've heard, they've been the highlight of people's zoo work experience - the joys of tickling a tapir's tummy!
 
Nigripes said:
Some people just have no interest in reading signs, I have spent many an afternoon at the zoos tapir enclosure listening the large list of species people think it is, this is understandible as its not a widely known species for the average zoo visitor but when you have people mixing up giraffe and zebra it can be frustrating especially when they are standing infront of a sign. At my local zoo they now keep spectacled bears where the polar bears used to be and still nearly 10 years on you hear people calling them polar bears lol:rolleyes:
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I`m guessing from this your local zoo is Belfast but i could be wrong??
 
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