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

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lowland anoa said:
At FlamingoLand a woman shouted look at that warthog! But she was in front of the Meerkat enclosure and the warthog was near the ring-tailed coati. I hate it when people mistake an animal for something else.
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Maybe she was talking about her husband or kids? :p
 
Cassidy Casuar said:
The fact that many people mispronounce 'Emu' (pronouncing it as 'E-moo' instead of 'E-mee-oo'/'Eem-you') is something that I find to be highly irritating.
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that's the standard American pronunciation. They can't pronounce anything correctly :p
 
People who litter, smoke, shout, scream, mis-identify animals (for example saying a goose is a pigeon), parents not having a care in the world, people who eat or drink in walkthrough enclosures, people (especially children)who shout 'OH MY GOD' when ever they see an animal and queues for toilets!
 
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Chlidonias said:
that's the standard American pronunciation. They can't pronounce anything correctly :p
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well, in German you say "emoo", and as long as the origin of the word is not clear you can pronunce it the way you want :p

"It may have been derived from an Arabic word for large bird and later adopted by early Portuguese explorers and applied to cassowaries in eastern Indonesia. The term was then transferred to the Emu by early European explorers to Australia."
Emu - Australian Museum
 
Don't you just love it when people are looking at a group of the same type of animal, then suddenly declare that they see two different types, and start pointing out barely-noticeable and/or non-existent differences among two or three individuals as proof that they're different species?
 
AnaheimZoo said:
Don't you just love it when people are looking at a group of the same type of animal, then suddenly declare that they see two different types, and start pointing out barely-noticeable and/or non-existent differences among two or three individuals as proof that there are different species?
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To be honest I'd probably prefer this over people thinking a gibbon and an orangutan are the same species:p

~Thylo:cool:
 
ThylacineAlive said:
To be honest I'd probably prefer this over people thinking a gibbon and an orangutan are the same species:p
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You know, that's actually a lot worse, so... :D

I don't know, I guess I found it more irritating because it was one of the several annoying things said/done while I was recording some good video of the Pere David's Deer at the Bronx that I felt ultimately ruined the video. Haha.
 
Brum said:
And on that point; People who complain animals shouldn't be in zoos whilst going round an actual zoo and looking at animals! Why go to the zoo just to complain? :rolleyes:
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Ha ha, for real, I hate that. If you think zoos are bad, why would you go to one? Either you don't really think zoos are that bad, or you think they are bad but you care more about your own entertainment than you do about animal welfare. If you really think it's bad, you're a terrible person for supporting them by giving them money. (unless maybe you're going in to do an expose or something, I guess) I mean, I don't visit facilities if I think the animals are treated poorly, I'm pretty sure most ZooChatters are like that.

Anyway, the usual misidentification of animals is pretty annoying. I see a lot of people call African wild dogs hyenas. (for non-zoo animals, people always call grackles crows or ravens. DUDE, HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN A CROW OR A RAVEN?!) It's not like I expect the general public to have a lot of animal knowledge, (African wild dogs aren't exactly stock animals, after all) but come on, you're at a zoo and there are signs on the exhibits, there's no excuse.

Parents who do nothing while kids harass animals. I wanna scream in their stupid faces but I don't want to risk getting kicked out of the zoo, ha ha.
 
"Look darling, It's a Coyote!"
No ma'am. That is a Coati. Not a Coyote. Please stop misinforming your children.

I've also heard someone call a Harbor Seal a Manatee, a Chimpanzee a gorilla, and so forth...

I'm also enraged when people tell their curious children "They're just birds" or "They're just turtles" and so forth. There is nothing more depressing than that.
 
Here is a pearl of wisdom overheard at the Stone Zoo, not so much annoying to me as it is hilarious: "These are the Arctic Foxes they're from Antarctica!"
 
10.15 am at Yorkshire Wildlife Park (i.e. it had been open for 15 mins), man to interested child watching the baboons "Come away, you've seen them!"
 
OrangePerson said:
10.15 am at Yorkshire Wildlife Park (i.e. it had been open for 15 mins), man to interested child watching the baboons "Come away, you've seen them!"
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To be fair primates are a massive distraction to children, at Paignton I had to drag my oldest away from the mangabeys! Unlike the man in your story though we only had 45 minutes to see the rest of the zoo... :p
 
The two things I hate the most are parents who can't control their kids and people who call animals by the wrong names.
I know that second one's a little unfair but it really winds me up, especially when it's something like "Look at the monkey" and I'm just like no, it's a gorilla, IT'S A FECKING APE. Also when people call things like coatis cats and kookaburras owls -_-
 
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