Things people do that irritate you when you go to the zoo? #2

This isn't really an annoying experience, but once at Taronga I was taking photos at an exhibit where a father and his young son were also observing. The child asked his father what kind of bird it was and the father looked rather helplessly at me, to which I responded by naming the bird in question (an Egyptian goose). The father then passed this information on to his son. Strangely enough the two of them followed me around for quite some time - either the father didn't want to read the signage or didn't want his son to find out about his lack of knowledge.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Oh indeed :) but yes, generally speaking doing something that boosts oxytocin (whatever it is that works for you) is the key.
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Seeing that you love animals enough to be on this site, I hope you can find relief using TLD's
protocol and indeed any that you can dream up. The empirical method is the key to this whole field, so keep trying "trial and error" until something works! Good luck!
 
For me i find the screaming difficult, ive started wearing little foam ear defenders and i get upset when people pass the birds by. last week someone said "oh its just boring birds"....i love the birds xx
 
At Lehigh Valley Zoo recently, a large group of kids (8-10 year olds?) had been behaving from what I saw of them elsewhere, then all decided to SCREAM as loud as they could in the covered (read: voices echo) area by the mexican wolves. It was awful! I was pretty happy to hear them get in trouble for it.
 
If we are talking about people showing their ignorance, on a recent zoo visit I heard:

  • Otters being called crocodiles
  • Scimitar Horned Oryx being called unicorns
  • Someone reading the sign for the cusimanses and shouting out that they are from Portugal.
 
Goura said:
This isn't really an annoying experience, but once at Taronga I was taking photos at an exhibit where a father and his young son were also observing. The child asked his father what kind of bird it was and the father looked rather helplessly at me, to which I responded by naming the bird in question (an Egyptian goose). The father then passed this information on to his son. Strangely enough the two of them followed me around for quite some time - either the father didn't want to read the signage or didn't want his son to find out about his lack of knowledge.
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Is it possible the father couldn't actually read that well and was worried about showing himself up in front of his son?
 
NMM said:
Is it possible the father couldn't actually read that well and was worried about showing himself up in front of his son?
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Of course that's a possibility - in any case I'm glad I could help :)
 
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Went to Ueno Zoo a few years ago. My great aunt went with us. She is scared of rodents and bats. We had to leave her outside to go into the nocturnal house, and had to speed through the small mammal house. Never got to see tarsiers. I don't like it when people won't go in an exhibit because they hate the animals in there. They're behind glass. Maybe when you see the animal in person you'll realize how special it was. (At least we saw leopard cats.)
 
MonkeyBat said:
Went to Ueno Zoo a few years ago. My great aunt went with us. She is scared of rodents and bats. We had to leave her outside to go into the nocturnal house, and had to speed through the small mammal house. Never got to see tarsiers. I don't like it when people won't go in an exhibit because they hate the animals in there. They're behind glass. Maybe when you see the animal in person you'll realize how special it was. (At least we saw leopard cats.)
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Fear doesn't work like that, that's why it's a fear.
 
@MonkeyBat phobias can be a serious issue. I've collaborated with therapists to help people confront and overcome their arachno-/ophiophobia, and it never was easy.
 
At Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, I find that people at the stingray pool are really disrespectful. A few examples:
  • If I had a dollar for every time I had to remind people to wash their hands before petting the stingrays, I wouldn't need this job. This is of course despite the fact there is signage that clearly states that hand washing is required.
  • People also don't seem to understand that splashing the water doesn't make the stingrays want to come to you. It's even worse when I have to remind the same group multiple times. My favorite example is once there was this group of kids that kept splashing so I had to remind them several times not to. Next thing you know one of the parents starts yelling at me and asking them why I was "bullying all the kids" (which I wasn't by the, I was just doing my job). He then asked me, "How'd you like it if I th you in the pool?" I was kind of shocked but I responded with, "Is that a threat sir?" He then proceeded to take his kids and leave in a huff. I should of called security but I didn't think to in the moment.
  • Finally, fortunately this only happened once, but this one dude kept yanking on the rays' tails. I kept telling him to stop but he told me, "Let a real pro handle it." I said ok and I called an older docent who kicked him out.
Not as much so but people also act unintelligently at the penguin exhibit. In fact the only time we've ever had an animal breach was about 10 years ago (so long before I worked there) was when a guest reached over, picked up a penguin, and put it on the ground. In case you're wondering the penguin was caught and the lady was banned for life. We also regularly have people (usually adults) try to pet the penguins and, surprise, surprise, the get bit.

One last thing, on the subject of fears, this doesn't bother me but I was surprised to learn how many teenagers and adults suffer from lepidopterophobia. Unfortunately for those people, they're often dragged through the butterfly house by there family/friends.

The opinions expressed in this post are those of "Hipporex." They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Six Flags or any of its affiliates.
 
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Hipporex said:
The opinions expressed in this post are those of "Hipporex." They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Six Flags or any of its affiliates.
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xD :D

Not so much irritation but pure, blatant disregard to the rules. I was at Montpellier zoo once and I passed a guy who was holding open the door to the rainforest house with free-flight birds inside. I told him not to, and he said he was trying to let them out since they deserved freedom just us we do. I went and got hold of the guy at the ticket desk, which is right next to the rainforest house, and made sure no birds had escaped before throwing him out.
 
amur leopard said:
Not so much irritation but pure, blatant disregard to the rules. I was at Montpellier zoo once and I passed a guy who was holding open the door to the rainforest house with free-flight birds inside. I told him not to, and he said he was trying to let them out since they deserved freedom just us we do. I went and got hold of the guy at the ticket desk, which is right next to the rainforest house, and made sure no birds had escaped before throwing him out.
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My god. That's just awful of that guy.
 
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