General Zoo Misconceptions

They think hippo absences are bad? Should try listening to the visitor moans at Marwell: 'not a proper zoo 'cos there's no elephants, lions, gorillas,' etc etc... :P
 
It's amazing, I hear that a lot too... you'd think people would understand that any facility in a small park wouldn't really be able to house an animal of that size. Oh well.
 
When I was at the Catotcin Zoo we heard the lone lioness roar. A visitor by me told her group, "Oh there's the elephant!" I could only imagine an elephant at that zoo. I could picture a kiddie swimming pool and an old cow barn.
 
I was watching a pair of sitatunga a few weeks ago and several people saw the smaller and more colourful female, and said it was a baby.
 
bongorob said:
I was watching a pair of sitatunga a few weeks ago and several people saw the smaller and more colourful female, and said it was a baby.
Click to expand...

A group of Brits at Barcelona Zoo last week made a similar mistake with a mixed group of a single Martin's White-nosed Guenon and a few Northern Talapoins. Clearly the only possible reason an animal might be smaller than another is that it's a baby... :D
 
Oh dear, some of them made me laugh, my favourite has to be this...'mummy mummy! look! It's a panda!'.....the 'panda' was a black and white ruffed lemur. Also I've noticed people get stuck on deciding what a mara is, even though there's signs etc..'its a deer'...'no wait, its got rabbit ears'....'a kangaroo maybe'...'nooo kangaroos are red', it can go on for quite a while.
 
I'm afraid the ignorance of most people when it comes to anything to do with animals never ceases to amaze, and appal, me. The other day I used the word "Galago" and two people asked me what I meant, as the term was unfamiliar to them. I explained it was the proper, zoological, name for bushbabies. Now, in my naivety, I thought that everybody at least knew what a "bushbaby" was. Imagine my shock, then, when neither person had ever heard of a bushbaby!
 
I was shocked when I honestly thought everyone knew where gorillas came from....turns out many manyyy don't. The most popular answer is 'the jungles in south america, whats it called, ah yeah Brazil'...:/
 
zooman64 said:
I'm afraid the ignorance of most people when it comes to anything to do with animals never ceases to amaze, and appal, me. The other day I used the word "Galago" and two people asked me what I meant, as the term was unfamiliar to them. I explained it was the proper, zoological, name for bushbabies. Now, in my naivety, I thought that everybody at least knew what a "bushbaby" was. Imagine my shock, then, when neither person had ever heard of a bushbaby!
Click to expand...

If you can actually have such high expectations to people, then I guess the ignorance about animals is not quite as protruding in the UK than in Denmark.

Here, I wouldn't even count on people knowing what a lemur is (most Danish zoo-goers don't seem to know, calling lemurs "monkeys", "sloths" or whatever), and I'd say that a lemur is a quite more well-known prosimian than a galago/bushbaby.
 
Hey guys I am new here and this is my first post so YAY! ok so i am a docent at a local zoo that shall remain nameless and I also died a little in the inside. Here we go!

Some little kid was at the zoo (ghetto kid like 10 years old) And he goes to his mom and is like "MOM LOOK AT THE GREEN ANACONDA LOOK AT THE GREEN ANACONDA THATS A GREEN ANACONDA THE ARE 40 FEET AND EAT PEOPLE"

i walked over to him and politely said "That is a red tailed ratsnake"

He said "no its a green anaconda!"

I said "im more qualified than you and i can assure you it is a red tailed racer"

than he said "IM RIGHT YOUR WRONG GET THE F**K OUT OF MY FACE"

I asked him to please leave the area.

He did and than i cried in the corner at what the world has come to.

Apparently Red tailed racers are "green anacondas". This kid was ten and cursed me out in front of a huge crowd. He than later asked me if he can buy some of the animals. I said no and OMG he kept coming back. I was ready to kill someone lol.
 
With his attitude I would think that he was just trying to annoy you on purpose, but it could be either way I guess.
 
I work with brooklynboy and I can honestly say that the NY zoo crowd is basically like that sometimes. It's unfortunate. I get stuff like that all the time. It sucks because that exibit is labelled, and we have actual Anaconda like 15 feet away...
 
Tig said:
I work with brooklynboy and I can honestly say that the NY zoo crowd is basically like that sometimes. It's unfortunate. I get stuff like that all the time. It sucks because that exibit is labelled, and we have actual Anaconda like 15 feet away...
Click to expand...

Yes you do work with me kind sir :D. And yes there is an actual green anaconda 15 feet away lol.
 
General Zoo Misconceptions

I have heard many misconceptions at zoos, but my favourite concerned the first enclosure in the old Nocturnal House in London Zoo's Children's Zoo. This was a mixed enclosure containing lesser bushbabies and aardvarks. The aardvarks were very noticeable and several customers just saw the bushbaby label. "Those are aardvarks." "Big, aren't they?" "They leap from tree to tree."

I can understand members of the general public making mistakes, but some greater authorities make mistakes. I went to a talk by David Attenborough, who got asked a question about tuataras. "For those who don't know, the tuatara is a type of lizard from New Zealand."

We all make mistakes.
 
I have nothing but admiration for Sir David Attenborough but, that said, he really should aim to give absolutely spot-on information at all times, as he is one of the few people whom everybody trusts implicitly, and whatever he says is never doubted. (If only politicians were half as trustworthy.) He probably thought it was easier, and certainly less time-consuming, to tell the audience that a tuatara was a lizard (because it does look like one and everyone has an idea of what a lizard looks like) than try to explain to them what it really is. It is regrettable, though, that he chose the easy option at the expense of zoological fidelity.
 
brooklynboy521 said:
I said "im more qualified than you and i can assure you it is a red tailed racer"

lol.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Dassie rat said:
I have heard many misconceptions at zoos, but my favourite concerned the first enclosure in the old Nocturnal House in London Zoo's Children's Zoo. This was a mixed enclosure containing lesser bushbabies and aardvarks. The aardvarks were very noticeable and several customers just saw the bushbaby label. "Those are aardvarks." "Big, aren't they?" "They leap from tree to tree."

I can understand members of the general public making mistakes, but some greater authorities make mistakes. I went to a talk by David Attenborough, who got asked a question about tuataras. "For those who don't know, the tuatara is a type of lizard from New Zealand."

We all make mistakes.
Click to expand...

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.


Had a day of old favourites at Twycross yesterday - lots of people thinking the dhole were 'foxes' (and plenty of comments to the effect of 'I can see them in my garden'), lots of people assuiming if they only saw one animal straight away then there was only one and how mean that was (couldn't just be hiding, eh?) and lots of people being confused by the aardwolf. And there's a huge sign giving some nice basic chunks of aardwolf info on the side of the house, but somehow it always gets ignored.


Oh, and my absolute favourite of the day:

A child was watching three subadult Inca Terns lined up along a windowsill, absolutely enthralled.

The father dragged the child away, saying 'come on, we didn't come here to look at birdies, did we?'

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.

:rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top