Quiet Areas

[tigertiger]

I think that the behavior of children (and even older people in zoos) is enigmatic of a much bigger problem of how people are generally educated on zoos.

I read a lot of reviews for the Bronx Zoo last night and there were several reviews complaining about how lions, elephants and rhinos cannot be seen in winter (we're a land partial to large sums of snow--especially this winter). When another poster pointed this out, several posts afterwords complained that they shouldn't have to miss their favorite zoo animals just because it's snowing. Yes, some zoos have indoor exhibits for such animals but to insinuate that the zoo bringing a lion indoors when it snows is somehow offensive to visitors is absurd. Then again, I've also read Internet reviews that were plain upset because the movie Madagascar by Disney showed animals that were not actually in the Central Park Zoo and that this was highly misleading for the zoo to do. Clearly, people incapable of Google-ing a website before going to the zoo to see a talking zebra are not the ones at fault

Or just today, I went to the zoo and there was this nice couple (20-30's) waiting at the gate with me. When I was looking at the grizzly bear (who was actually out--he never really is), the man came barreling down the hill, climbed over the decorative barrier, began leaning over the wall of the exhibit and screaming on the top of his lungs for the bear to look his way. When the bear (I'm assuming aggravated at the noise or just in the mood for it...) decided to climb the to the of the exhibit [where he could not been seen anymore...] the man threw his lens cap at the bear (which clearly missed and still landed in the bushes on the visitor side of the moat).

On a [somewhat] bright note, there was a college ecology class at the zoo today too monitoring animals (something to do with timing some behavior or the like...) and they were genuinely quiet the whole time except when the professor would say time and they'd move on. The biggest inconvenience the group brought was that for certain exhibits there were four or five people monitoring a single exhibit so it was harder to see for the time they were there.

 

[Zambar]

Aye, I remember visiting London Zoo on an insect day and getting caught in school group in the worst possible place: The nocturnal house. It was literally deafning, which combined with the dark didn't help.

 

[sooty mangabey]

I agree 100% with you on this. In very many zoo visits at different zoos, I've never seen well-behaved school groups and somtimes their behaviour is quite appalling.

Wholly in agreement here - and I speak as a school teacher. School groups in a zoo are a nightmare. I have seen this to be the case in the USA, in Germany, in Holland, in Britain - pretty much everywhere. I don't really blame the children - I expect packs of young people to behave badly, really, when they are in a mob, and when they are unsupervised. But I do blame the zoos (who are happy to get the money, and the kudos, of having lots of educational visitors, but often don't really know what to do with those children), and, far more, the teachers, who are just rubbish at looking after thier groups and too lazy - or frightened of their charges? - to stand up to them and tell them what to do (or what not to do). If secondary school aged children are going to be brought into a zoo in groups, it is not fair on other visitors or - more importantly - on the animals to allow them to behave like this. That they do, and that this can then be called 'education', is an absolute farce.

There may be excpetions ot all of this - but I cannot think of them.

As a teacher, i have taken groups to Port Lympne. The service we had from the education department there was shocking; the children were given work of no relevance at all, spoken to as if they were toddlers and would - had their teachers not been more on the ball - have had very little to persuade them to do anyhting other than rampage. I will not go there again with a group, and I would only ever take a small group of children who were particularly interested to a zoo.

 

[Gigit]

Perhaps zoos should reserve one day a week for schools - the animals and keepers could lie low and the rest of us would know to keep away.
(When schools do their risk assessments for these visits, do they take into account possible repercussions from irate zoo goers?)

 

[zebedee101]

At Whipsnade or Port Lympne- anywhere that is more than a few hundred yards away from the Entrance area....

On bank holidays at Whipsnade:

1 the area between the penguin exhibit and the American bison, many people see the bison as they come up the hill to the zoo in the car but rarely go see them at the zoo due to the lack of a path going there.

2 the area of the downs where the tiger and lion dells and kodiak bears were, unless they happen to be exercising the elephants there.

3 the area between the gaur/indian rhino and the elephant paddock, again no formal path between the path and people would have to actually walk!

 

[zebedee101]

Perhaps zoos should reserve one day a week for schools - the animals and keepers could lie low and the rest of us would know to keep away.
(When schools do their risk assessments for these visits, do they take into account possible repercussions from irate zoo goers?)

The majority of a zoos visitors are made up of school children either as a school visit or as part of a summer camp organisation. While weekends may be busy, not all parents keep their kids in check either. Zoos are never going to prevent children from attending simply from a financial stand point. In my opinion if a visit to the zoo makes even just one of the kids think about conservation or the environment then it has done its job. It was class trips to the zoo that started my interest in zoos and animals and I'm sure many feel the same. Zoos should be all about kids and keeping the next generation interested rather than joining the born-free philosophy of thinking. I personally will leave an exhibit if its too noisy and return later, as a photographer its not worth trying to crop out heads etcwhere kids have climbed in front of you just as the animal exhibits the behavioue you have been waiting over an hour for!

 

[Mr Saxon]

The quietest place at Belfast would be the Avenue walk with The Bongos and Tapirs. Only the people smart enough to look at the map go down there and many a time they are old couples who obviously don't make to much noise.
Everytime I go down there its peaceful and you can watch the Bongos without being disrupted too much. Its also good place for the Tapirs cause of their shy nature.

But I do think the avenue walk should get a bit revamped and start attracting more people there to see the rare animals.

 

[Rookeyper]

I have a couple of thoughts in response to the comments about noisy school groups. As a keeper I've experienced many of these groups. My office is in our nocturnal building and I hear the volume going up in direct correlation to the age of the children. One strategy I employ is to go stand in the bat exhibit. When the kids see me in there it shocks them into getting a bit quieter. If they keep shouting I begin talking in a quiet tone of voice about the bats. This usually lowers the volume by several decibels. If they continue to yell I generally ask them politely to speak more quietly so that others might hear what I'm saying. We did have one school who always behaved horribly. I talked to the teachers (happened toknow one of them) and they changed their strategy: they brought at least 2 teachers for every section of the zoo. They all had cell phones and talked to each other frequently. They also had a teacher waiting on the bus who dealt with problem kids by keeping on the bus in a kind of study hall. This helped the situation immensely. If we find problem groups we often just follow them or pretend to notify "the officials" on our radios. It helps a lot just having the staff visible on busy days.
Quiet place at our zoo--a small circular area in our outback with benches, next to the aviary.