People Breaking the Rules at Zoos

EternalPigeon said:
At various zoos, I have witnessed a lot of people throwing coins into koi/waterfowl ponds, when a sign that is literally two feet away says not to.
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If you think that's bad, the last pool in the Barcelona Zoo's crocodile greenhouse (formerly keeping american alligators, then spectacled caimans and currently a Nile softshell turtle) has had coins thrown into it as long as I can remember. Only the last inhabitant has yet to receive any coins, but that may be because he was put there shortly after the lockdown ended here.

I don't really have much more to add to this thread, but I may as well mention some situations I've experienced;

- A trashy family was chucking bread at the orangutans at Barcelona Zoo. I politely told them it wasn't allowed and they threatened to curb-stomp me. I called security, and later was told by the staff that they were difficult to expel.

- Another trashy family in Barcelona Zoo allowed their two Fortnite-playing kids to go into the Galapagos giant tortoise exhibit and they started to floss around one of them. Me and another visitor told them to stop, and those chavs used every insult in their dictionary at us. Again, we warned security immediately.

- When I was about 7, my dad and my older brother reached out and touched a kiwi in a kiwi house in a wildlife park in Christchurch (don't remember which one, but it wasn't Orana. It was mostly farm animals, and there were some feedable giant eels). The kiwi took fright, of course, and I was outraged even back then XD.
 
JigerofLemuria said:
Another trashy family in Barcelona Zoo allowed their two Fortnite-playing kids to go into the Galapagos giant tortoise exhibit and they started to floss around one of them. Me and another visitor told them to stop, and those chavs used every insult in their dictionary at us. Again, we warned security immediately.
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This has got to be the weirdest thing I have ever heard.
 
RatioTile said:
I’m slightly surprised this happens in a highly developed and educated country. It appears to be rare in other wealthy and developed countries in Europe and Asia.

Not to be too classist, but stereotypically things like this would happen more in developing countries with a lower level of widespread education, countries with a new and growing middle class that is wealthier than it is educated and “gentlemanly.”
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The problem in even the most devolped countires of Asia (Japan,Taiwan South Korea), there is not the smae cultural idea that animals are beings that deserve respect. The only realy acception would be Singapore, but it is a special case.
 
GiratinaIsGod said:
The problem in even the most devolped countires of Asia (Japan,Taiwan South Korea), there is not the smae cultural idea that animals are beings that deserve respect. The only realy acception would be Singapore, but it is a special case.
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Generally in Asia the more Buddhist a country is, the more they respect animals. Japan has a strong Shinto tradition of being kind to animals. Also, on average Japanese visitors to zoos were overall the least disruptive zoo patrons I have seen anywhere. In Taiwan people are generally also fairly considerate at the Taipei Zoo; it’s more tourists from developing countries that are the boisterous ones.
 
RatioTile said:
Generally in Asia the more Buddhist a country is, the more they respect animals. Japan has a strong Shinto tradition of being kind to animals. Also, on average Japanese visitors to zoos were overall the least disruptive zoo patrons I have seen anywhere. In Taiwan people are generally also fairly considerate at the Taipei Zoo; it’s more tourists from developing countries that are the boisterous ones.
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While I do think that Buddhism and Shinto as religions are far more considerate towards the natural world and animals I do think that is a bit of a generalization that in Asia zoo visitors tend to be less disruptive.

I've read and seen things online that would seem to indicate that people in that part of the world can be just as bad as anywhere else and afterall humans are alike everywhere. Asia is a big chunk of the world and each country and culture regardless of the dominant religion will have its own national character that will be quite dissimilar to another and even across regions of countries there will be different social mores in public.

Maybe the cultural difference in Japan is the underlying social mores / ettiquette of "Teinei " (good manners in public) while in Taiwan you do have the Chinese Confucian ethic of obeying your elders and authority figures which is strongly encouraged from an early age.

However, this enculturation doesn't necessarily guarantee good behaviour from visitors and there have been plenty of incidents at mainland Chinese zoos that show the opposite occurring.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
While I do think that Buddhism and Shinto as religions are far more considerate towards the natural world and animals I do think that is a bit of a generalization that in Asia zoo visitors tend to be less disruptive.

I've read and seen things online that would seem to indicate that people in that part of the world can be just as bad as anywhere else and afterall humans are alike everywhere. Asia is a big chunk of the world and each country and culture regardless of the dominant religion will have its own national character that will be quite dissimilar to another and even across regions of countries there will be different social mores in public.

Maybe the cultural difference in Japan is the underlying social mores / ettiquette of "Teinei " (good manners in public) while in Taiwan you do have the Chinese Confucian ethic of obeying your elders and authority figures which is strongly encouraged from an early age.

However, this enculturation doesn't necessarily guarantee good behaviour from visitors and there have been plenty of incidents at mainland Chinese zoos that show the opposite occurring.
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I drew the line at developed vs. developing countries. Paywalled, but this article details how some Chinese tourists have misbehaved overseas and how the government tried to rein them in:

Mind your manners
 
RatioTile said:
I drew the line at developed vs. developing countries. Paywalled, but this article details how some Chinese tourists have misbehaved overseas and how the government tried to rein them in:

Mind your manners
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You can often see the same bad manners and frankly sometimes psychopathic behaviour towards animals from zoo visitors within developed countries such as Australia, USA, UK too.

While there may be some truth to the developed vs developing world dichotomy you mention I don't think it is quite as reductive as that.

Human behaviour and attitudes towards the natural world are complex and they tend to vary widely everywhere.
 
RatioTile said:
Generally in Asia the more Buddhist a country is, the more they respect animals. Japan has a strong Shinto tradition of being kind to animals. Also, on average Japanese visitors to zoos were overall the least disruptive zoo patrons I have seen anywhere. In Taiwan people are generally also fairly considerate at the Taipei Zoo; it’s more tourists from developing countries that are the boisterous ones.
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People in Asia can still be cruel to animals. Have you ever seen those videos where they eat live octopuses? In fact, no matter how nice a country or its people may seem, everywhere you go there still are some jerks who think animal lives have little to no value.
 
Today I went to Busch Gardens Tampa and two boys picked up some pebbles or something off the ground and threw them into the meerkat exhibit. The meerkats were out and about, so I definitely thought someone would get hurt. I told the boys "please don't throw things at the animals" and they walked away. I didn't see, but I don't think any of the meerkats actually got hit.
 
Most people I encounter at Lincoln Park Zoo are very respectful to the animals, but yesterday when I visited, I saw no less than three kids tapping on the glass of various animal exhibits (Western Lowland Gorilla, giraffes in the African Savanna and Asian Small-Clawed Otter). In two instances the parent thankfully told the kid not to do that, but there were other times where the parent didn't say anything, either at all or it took them a few seconds. I actually almost said something to the kids tapping on the otter exhibit, but their parent beat me to it by a second.
 
Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago. Years ago now in the underground Great Ape Building a young girl was banging on the glass by the gorillas. I tried telling her that's not appropiate thing to disturbing the gorillas in their home. I got the riot act by her father, and could of turned very ugly. I did smart thing and left accordingly not wishing to engaging in a fight in a very crowded exhibit area.

St. Louis Zoo: again another young child. This happen to be a boy whom started picking up small sticks and stones and throwing them into Somali Wild Ass exhibit. He was close to hitting the one close to the front, but I told him of the danger throwing objects at species and causing frighting behavior to the animal. Thankfully the mother confronted her son, and acknowledged my words of wisdom.

Como Zoo, St. Paul. This one took the cake. Older man with a really good wooded cane is poking it through the mesh wire poking directly into the side of the cougar lying there. The cougar got up and was started to snarl. I was getting worked up, and told dude that wasn't at all cool thing to be doing. Dude also began threating me, and poking and threating my backpack I was carrying. Of course where is security when you really need them? No where! I made be line to front of zoo to contact any zoo offical to act immediately. What I got was casual acknowledgement. Whether someone actually followed through I don't know. Very distrubing situation.
 
Saw a guy at Cairns Aquarium a few years ago repeatedly slapping on the tank glass, trying to make a Milk-Spotted Pufferfish inflate. It was in a cylindrical tank, and he would slap the glass in front of the puffer, the fish would dash to the other side of the cylinder, where he would slap it again. The puffer never did inflate. I asked the guy to stop, explained how it was stressful for the fish. Luckily he did.
 
junglejim said:
Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago. Years ago now in the underground Great Ape Building a young girl was banging on the glass by the gorillas. I tried telling her that's not appropiate thing to disturbing the gorillas in their home. I got the riot act by her father, and could of turned very ugly. I did smart thing and left accordingly not wishing to engaging in a fight in a very crowded exhibit area.
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Lincoln Park Zoo years ago had a gorilla named Lenore who was one of the last wild-born gorillas in the zoo, and was also easily recognizable because she only had one hand (I don't remember what happened but it had to be amputated). One time she was sitting with her back against the glass in the old ape house, and I don't recall anybody tapping on the glass at that time, but out of nowhere, she turned around, smacked the glass with her right arm (where her amputation had taken place) and ran off, spooking the kids that had been sitting there. I was amused.
 
Technically this wasn't at a zoo but did involve animals. The farm where I work in the summer has a "open barn" event twice a week. A few months ago 3 kids hopped a gate and entered one of the horse pastures. Luckily they were caught and reprimanded for their behavior. Most of the farm's horses are well behaved but we do have one young male who can be a little aggressive. Luckily no one was hurt and the incident was really just a conversation point with the staff and I.
 
In 1998, visitors in the Toronto Zoo fed forbidden cookies to the orangutans. The orangutans then got into a scuffle over the food, which resulted in another orangutan knocking the orangutan Kartiko into the moat. Since orangutans can't swim, Kartiko drowned. Luckily, a former lifeguard was on the scene, and dove in the moat to save Kartiko. Her girlfriend tried to revive him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, then she blew air into his lungs using a rolled zoo map. Kartiko was later saved but died a few days later to pneumonia. An unfortunate end to Kartiko but heroic actions from the two visitors. A few years later, a pledge was installed near the Indo-Malaya Pavilion, to educate visitors on consequences for feeding the animals. If you go to the Toronto Zoo today, you will notice this pledge for Kartiko. The family who killed Kartiko just avoided the scene and was never identified.
toronto-zoo.jpg



In 1985 in the Toronto Zoo, three boys were just biking down the Rouge Park, where they found a pack of arctic wolves near a fence. They then climbed over the fence, and fed the wolves cheese packs, then taunted them. That's when an unfortunate event happened. The youngest boy, Scott Connor, tripped, and fell. The wolves attacked, injuring his arm. His brother, Adam tried to help but was mauled in the process. Their friend, Chris finally pried them off the wolves, but they were badly injured. The zoo monorail came by, and picked them up. Both Adam and Scott was transported to the hospital, where Adam would be okay, but Scott lost his arm. It was an unfortunate consequence but I guess thats what happens when you trespass zoo property. A decade later, Scott was awarded for $11 million dollars for the rest of his life, which was sad since the zoo had to pay the settlement that they didn't have to.

Make sure you think first before breaking the rules at any zoo.
 
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My Gramps has a history of attempting to pet animals at the zoo…

- A year or two ago my Gramps attempted to let a giraffe at the Fort Worth Zoo and got yelled at by a keeper. Afterwards he told me about when he was stationed somewhere for the navy and was allowed to pet the giraffes at whatever local zoo he went to.

- My favorite story is from around five years ago and when I had a birthday at the zoo and he tried to pet an African penguin that they had brought out for some animal showcase thing. (I also remember them bringing out chameleons and tenrecs among other things.) The penguin responded to his attempted interaction by biting his hand.
 
I don't know if this is considered breaking a rule at the zoo, but I might as well share this. In, 2012 a mother and a toddler at the Pittsburgh Zoo was just watching a pack of African Wild Dogs, when the mother let her son stand on the wooden railing to get a better view. The toddler then lost his balance and fell into the zoo enclosure, resulting in the wild dogs mauling him, while his helpless mother screamed for help. The toddler unfortunately died to the wild dogs, but all fingers must be pointed to the mother's irresponsible actions. What makes this story even more crazy is the fact that a few years later, the mother sued the zoo, even though they had nothing to do with this nonsense. The judge then decided to award the mother a loan of cash, which I guess the judge felt bad for her. After the incident however, the wild dogs were never put on exhibit again, so I guess we now know who to blame.
 
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ProjectGames said:
I don't know if this is considered breaking a rule at the zoo, but I might as well share this. In, 2012 a mother and a toddler at the Pittsburgh Zoo was just watching a pack of African Wild Dogs, when the mother let her son stand on the wooden railing to get a better view. The toddler then lost his balance and fell into the zoo enclosure, resulting in the wild dogs mauling him, while his helpless mother screamed for help. The toddler unfortunately died to the wild dogs, but all fingers must be pointed to the mother's irresponsible actions. What makes this story even more crazy is the fact that a few years later, the mother sued the zoo, even though they had nothing to do with this nonsense. The judge then decided to award the mother a loan of cash, which I guess the judge felt bad for her. After the incident however, the wild dogs were never put on exhibit again, so I guess we now know who to blame.
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That is absolutely horrific and irresponsible. Did she win the lawsuit or did the judge just give her money?
 
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