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

[kaytronika]

I've started to make considerate responses to people who do no harm but perhaps incorrectly identify species I know at our regular zoo of late. By which I mean, if they do seem interested in animals but have a few facts wrong I'll engage them in conversation about the animals. I find that people are often interested, but a little confused and sharing knowledge helps them enjoy their day, much as it does from my point of view if I find myself faced with animals I know little about.

If it's clear that they aren't there to learn, but just want to see the funny monkeys being rude I'll leave them to enjoy their day.

What I can't stand is rude people and people who do things that have potential to upset the animals.

A few recent examples:

A visitor stroking the okapi

A gent who 'loves big cats' pushing people aside to yell 'Hello mr tiger!' at an asiatic lioness.

The 'S/he's only young' brigade who use that to excuse an all manner of behaviour from their wayward offspring. Kicking the wire sections of standoff fences seems to be a favourite. Perhaps quiet correction of that behaviour while they're 'only young' will stop them from doing it when they aren't so young.

 

[Brum]

The 'S/he's only young' brigade who use that to excuse an all manner of behaviour from their wayward offspring. Kicking the wire sections of standoff fences seems to be a favourite. Perhaps quiet correction of that behaviour while they're 'only young' will stop them from doing it when they aren't so young.

Our 4 year old (she was 3 at the time) once slipped the stand off barrier at the Goeldi's monkey cage at Birmingham Nature Centre, fortunately it was a glass fronted exhibit. Needless to say, after a severe telling off from me, her mother and both grandparents she has not done it since. I agree that correction at a young age will deter them from following through with similar behaviour in the future!

 

[ThylacineAlive]

When at the Cincinnati Zoo on the 11th and 12th of this month, I saw/heard several things that annoyed me. One of the first things was when we were by the Indian Rhinoceros enclosure and just because that particular rhino had a shorter horn, a mother told her children that the zoo chopped off rhino's horns. I mean, the zoo has four rhinos (usually five) and all the others except that one individual have their horns all in tact! A second thing was when we were watching the zoo's Mueller's Gibbons who were swinging around and vocalizing a lot. At one point, one gibbon sat on a branch while the other one swung around it, vocalizing. At that point another mother told her child that the swinging gibbon was bullying the other one!! A few minutes later we were at the Lar Gibbon/Sumatran Orangutan enclosure and, well, I'm sure you could imagine what happened next. Needless to say, the zoo apparently now has three baby orangutans. The next day they were upgraded to "the little white ones", though. Possibly the biggest thing that absolutely shocked me during my visit was when we and my Mom were watching a Potto on our second visit and a mother came up with her children and said, "Look kids, see the bat?"!!!! Like really!? Does a Potto look even remotely like a bat?

There was also just a lot of the general people shouting or whistling (Mom!!) at the animals, people rudely pushing forward in front of my camera to get a better view, tapping on the glass, and, of course, parents telling their children to push through a crowd of people to get to the viewing glass.

~Thylo

 

[Grant Rhino]

I find this thread a little bit negative, but then I just cant resist mentioning the following - which I was absolutely flabagasted by:

I was watching the tapir at Melbourne Zoo and a tourist with a North American (probably US) accent said "Whats this thing? Is this a wallaby or something?"

I must admit I was speechless.... for quite a while...

Ive heard people try to describe tapirs as many different things in my time, but Ive never heard anyone call them a wallaby before or since!

 

[cloudedleopard]

Misidentifying Animals

I detest when people call an animal something it is not. At the Cleveland Zoo's sea lion exhibit I hear "sea otter" and "seal" all the time. Calling a tortoise a turtle and a gharial a crocodile/alligator are also common. At Akron I heard someone call Andean condors chickens! Columbus is the worst= calling an echidna a porcupine. I have heard "hedgehog", "warthog", and "polar bear" at the Columbus echidna enclosure. Polar bear I have also heard someone call a potto a monkey at Night Hunters at Cincy.

 

[ThylacineAlive]

I have also heard someone call a potto a monkey at Night Hunters at Cincy.

Still better than the lady who called one a bat.

At Philly I noticed multiple people calling the echidnas porcupines, though most read the signage after and corrected themselves. As such, I'll give them a pass for pronouncing it wrong.

~Thylo

 

[TheMightyOrca]

When at the Cincinnati Zoo on the 11th and 12th of this month, I saw/heard several things that annoyed me. One of the first things was when we were by the Indian Rhinoceros enclosure and just because that particular rhino had a shorter horn, a mother told her children that the zoo chopped off rhino's horns. I mean, the zoo has four rhinos (usually five) and all the others except that one individual have their horns all in tact! A second thing was when we were watching the zoo's Mueller's Gibbons who were swinging around and vocalizing a lot. At one point, one gibbon sat on a branch while the other one swung around it, vocalizing. At that point another mother told her child that the swinging gibbon was bullying the other one!! A few minutes later we were at the Lar Gibbon/Sumatran Orangutan enclosure and, well, I'm sure you could imagine what happened next. Needless to say, the zoo apparently now has three baby orangutans. The next day they were upgraded to "the little white ones", though. Possibly the biggest thing that absolutely shocked me during my visit was when we and my Mom were watching a Potto on our second visit and a mother came up with her children and said, "Look kids, see the bat?"!!!! Like really!? Does a Potto look even remotely like a bat?

There was also just a lot of the general people shouting or whistling (Mom!!) at the animals, people rudely pushing forward in front of my camera to get a better view, tapping on the glass, and, of course, parents telling their children to push through a crowd of people to get to the viewing glass.

~Thylo

Oh, man, I hate when parents do that. It's like, pretty much every zoo these days has signs telling you what the animal is. I suppose the people who do these things don't realize how much variety there is in the animal world, so they think everything fits into a small number of categories. Still, parents tend to take their kids to the zoos in part to help them learn about animals; you'd think they themselves would read the signs.

I too get rather mad at people who harass zoo animals. When I was a kid going to the Gladys Porter Zoo, people would throw coins in the alligator pit, and they would often try to hit the gators with 'em. On the few times I've actually seen one get hit, the gators would be clearly annoyed and try to move away.

 

[SamMetz]

This is a little off topic for this thread but I hate with all my power the people who are so anti-zoo. Its always people who go "Zoos are jails" and "How about you let them go back to the wild where you got them" that have little to no knowledge of the situations that are going on in the wild or how zoos operate. Its honestly like their mentalities are "Zoos are wrong because I don't like them but I could give a crap about animals in the wild" If people cared as much as they did about the wild populations of our wildlife as they did about animals in captivity maybe we wouldn't be in the worlds 6th mass extinction. I once talked to a girl who said she didn't like zoos but when I tried to explain things to her she stopped me because she didn't know what the word "Conservation" meant. I swear thats the majority of anti zoo people… -_-

As for on zoo grounds annoyances, I really hate:

*The regularly seen, banging on glass, running around, yelling, out of control children and their crap parents who could careless about their kids learning something and just want get a picture of their kid next to an animal.

*Also hate when parents let their kids push strollers around by themselves and they run it straight into you or right in the back of your shins. ALL while the moms and dads are chatting 20 feet away.

* Cant stand the whole taunting the animals thing, and Im the first person to say something to that person. If you're at a zoo you better damn have respect for the animals.

*As a photographer its really irritating to be clearly set up and taking pictures when a mom or dad will stand behind you and say things like "We have to wait for her to be done honey and she's gonna move in a minute" in a clearly loaded toward you/get out of the way tone. And Im usually fine with moving and letting people in the space I was using so their kid can have a chance to see and just waiting for them to leave but its freaking beyond me how people think a family friendly place gives them free reign over the whole place. Its a lot like the whole "Why are you at Disneyworld and you don't have a kid? Its for kids, Why are you here?" thing. Parents who act like having a kid is a trump card that means you have the right to everything first is why I try to go on slow days more then anything.

* But in all honestly this is WORST thing thats happened to me while at a zoo and I can't believe Ive had similar experiences after it. I was recently pushed over be a father while I was shooting because the snow leopard had gotten up and this guy runs me over trying to show it to his kid. I scraped up my arm on the stucco, busted open my knee and bruised my hip in the fall beacuse I tired to save my camera and not fall on it. And this guy didn't even turn around to ask if I was ok. Needless to say I was pissed, my bf who was with me would have decked the guy if he wasn't holding a kid. I was just lucky that a passing keeper saw it all happen and asked the man to leave after he refuse to apologize which the keeper then called her higher ups to tell him to leave also before they called the cops because apparently they had gotten complaints about the same guy all day. Its was a pretty amazing thing to see a staff and individual person stand up for someone else these days.

I really wish zoos screened their guest before letting them in. Sigh. Sorry for the rant but I'm glad zoo nerds can have threads like this when most people don't really care about zoo specific annoyances like these.

 

[Batto]

(...) but its freaking beyond me how people think a family friendly place gives them free reign over the whole place. Its a lot like the whole "Why are you at Disneyworld and you don't have a kid? Its for kids, Why are you here?" thing. Parents who act like having a kid is a trump card that means you have the right to everything first is why I try to go on slow days more then anything.

This!!!...is another reason why modern zoos should aspire to move away from focusing mainly on small children and their parents and try to address a broader spectre of the human population as visitors.

Being a parent myself, I've seen enough people misusing their children as a carte blanche to enforce their will on others. It's shameful behaviour, humiliating both the child and all people involved, and fortifies a certain "paedophobia" / negative image of children/families within society (showing through in some of the comments in this thread, too). This might also have negative consequences on zoos, downgrading them in the eye of the general public to entirely kiddiefied amusement parks that childless adults/adolescents should avoid.

 

[Nasua]

Some people's behaviour in zoos is just stupid. And often the victims are the animals and the visitors who just wants the other visitors to keep quiet when a sign says 'keep quiet!'.

Here is a, in my mind, top 5 annoying stuff people are doing/saying:

5) How many guys already said: people who can't identify the simplest animals..
There was this example with the "gorilla monkeys" or some other crazy stuff, like a man on one of my visits of Frankfurt Zoo thought the aardvark was a meerkat. Well, it's not fatal if somebody doesn't know the name of this and that little snake or fish or whatever but it's doable to know what an aardvark, a tapir or a gorilla is...

4) Queue-jumping people, every time it's the same. I'm in my local zoo, waiting 30min before, in front of the exhibit, till the feeding of e.g. the otters starts. There is always a huge crowd but I ensured the best place (well, I did wait here for 30min) and then, when the feeding starts, there is always a mother who sends her kids past all guys around the exhibit to the front. One time, I said 'excuse me but if your children want to see something you either come earlier or you take your child on your shoulders'. Reaction? She ignored me. I'm not against that the child should see sth too but it's very annoying if you're waiting there for a while for nothing.

3) Children running through the zoo: Another example happened to me not long time ago: Nocturnal House, Frankfurt Zoo: Glued on the door of the entrance, there is a very obvious sign, you can not pass, it's like impossible and there stands 'DON'T RUN, KEEP QUIET, NO FLASHLIGHT'. There is even a loudspeaker announcement (in the volume you should use too) in the still lighted area, telling the rules. No, a family behind me with 4 or 5 children ignores it COMPLETELY. The kids were running and shouting through the house in a volume you will not believe. Incomprehensible to me!

2) I don't know if it's the same in other countries or cities but where I live, 'going to the zoo is just for children' is the majority opinion of people, especially teenagers. I don't understand that opinion but many people in my city , when they think of the zoo, think of the waffles and the ice cream and maybe, just maybe of the chimps or lions. The don't even care about really beautiful exhibits , like in Karlsruhe the one for snow leopards, it seems like they don't see them. The same with smaller animals like Geoffrey's Cat in Karlsruhe, those animals are 'boring, lame, uninteresting' just because they are sleeping or not to see. Those people often are the same as those in point 5. If you're a teenager and you say you go to the zoo, let's say alone, it could happen the others say 'you're childish or an outsider'.

1) Descriped before as well, the children knocking at glass fences, shouting at the animals, feeding the animals, in brief: ignoring the rules and bothering the animals as well as the most visitors. Most times, the fault is because of the parents who can not restrain or educate their children. I don't know what about you but in those cases, I get really angry and furious, especially in the 'knocking and shouting' case. When somebody is shouting really hard on animals to move or to do sth, I freak out. And ignoring the rules so hard can hurt the animals psychologically and then the "zoo-haters" come and say this and that animals would do this and that unnatural move, well they often don't and when they really should, ... I explained why.

 

[TheMightyOrca]

2) I don't know if it's the same in other countries or cities but where I live, 'going to the zoo is just for children' is the majority opinion of people, especially teenagers. I don't understand that opinion but many people in my city , when they think of the zoo, think of the waffles and the ice cream and maybe, just maybe of the chimps or lions. The don't even care about really beautiful exhibits , like in Karlsruhe the one for snow leopards, it seems like they don't see them. The same with smaller animals like Geoffrey's Cat in Karlsruhe, those animals are 'boring, lame, uninteresting' just because they are sleeping or not to see. Those people often are the same as those in point 5. If you're a teenager and you say you go to the zoo, let's say alone, it could happen the others say 'you're childish or an outsider'.

Tell me about it. Though I think that's starting to change a little, at least in the US. My physical anthropology teacher at my university has an assignment every year where she sends students to the San Antonio Zoo and they have to spend half an hour each observing a few different primate species. Go the right time of the semester and see students taking notes everywhere, ha ha. All of the students tend to get pretty excited about it. Many zoos and aquariums today offer their facilities for weddings and receptions and other events. Though I do wish there was more appreciation for nice exhibits and the little animals. Guy at the zoo sees a black-footed cat and complains that he didn't go to the zoo to see some little cat. At least the other guests liked it cause of the adorable factor.

 

[TheMightyOrca]

This is a little off topic for this thread but I hate with all my power the people who are so anti-zoo. Its always people who go "Zoos are jails" and "How about you let them go back to the wild where you got them" that have little to no knowledge of the situations that are going on in the wild or how zoos operate. Its honestly like their mentalities are "Zoos are wrong because I don't like them but I could give a crap about animals in the wild" If people cared as much as they did about the wild populations of our wildlife as they did about animals in captivity maybe we wouldn't be in the worlds 6th mass extinction. I once talked to a girl who said she didn't like zoos but when I tried to explain things to her she stopped me because she didn't know what the word "Conservation" meant. I swear thats the majority of anti zoo people… -_-

A good portion of anti-zoo sentiment does come from ignorance on animals, I think. They might see unhappiness where there is none. An animal sleeps all day and they think it's sad, but many animals are more active at night. A solitary animal doesn't need a buddy to be happy. There's also the question of whether animals have the same concept of freedom as we do; so long as their physical and psychological needs are met, do they care if they're confined?

Though I have also seen the opposite, with people seeing an animal in a bad situation and assuming it's happy for a weird reason. That dolphin is smiling, or, that elephant is dancing! (swaying) How cute! Bleh.

 

[ThylacineAlive]

A problem I've encountered mostly at the Central Park Zoo but also a little at Cincy and Philly is, let's say I go to photograph an animal or even view it, and a take half a step backwards to get a better view, and bam! Someone (usually a child but not always so) pushes me completely out of the way or jumps in my shot. I can't tell you how many good shots I've taken but couldn't post due to half the animal being blocked by the body or hair of some kid or lady that jumped in my shot. And I can give kids a pass most of the time if it's a crowded area and they don't know any better, but when adults do it it really pisses me off! Also, and I've noticed this almost exclusively at Central Park, parents who tell their children to push through the crowd or around the older visitors because zoos are for kids and older people (even a teen like myself) have no right over the kids to view the animals. I don't even know how many times I've been at a prime viewing spot at CPZ and then been pushed out of the way by a child. And I do look back at the parents and the look they return says, "What? They're kids and have a right to view the animals over you since you're older. Move along." And it's a shame because, at CPZ in particular, I've noticed quite a lot of older people with professional cameras trying to enjoy the animals....

~Thylo

 

[Nasua]

Tell me about it. Though I think that's starting to change a little, at least in the US. My physical anthropology teacher at my university has an assignment every year where she sends students to the San Antonio Zoo and they have to spend half an hour each observing a few different primate species. Go the right time of the semester and see students taking notes everywhere, ha ha. All of the students tend to get pretty excited about it. Many zoos and aquariums today offer their facilities for weddings and receptions and other events. Though I do wish there was more appreciation for nice exhibits and the little animals. Guy at the zoo sees a black-footed cat and complains that he didn't go to the zoo to see some little cat. At least the other guests liked it cause of the adorable factor.

Good to hear it's changing at some places. It's not just annoying alone, the zoos could have a lot more visitors if the image would change. In Germany, it don't seems like this would happen

 

[TheMightyOrca]

Good to hear it's changing at some places. It's not just annoying alone, the zoos could have a lot more visitors if the image would change. In Germany, it don't seems like this would happen

I think zoos would change for the better, not just for visitors but for the animals, if they weren't just seen as places to entertain kids for a day. It would also improve reputations of zoos, again, seeing more as educational and not a place for parents to entertain their snotty, disrespectful brats. Older people going to zoos more, as well as more concern for animal welfare, I think will help zoos improve more in the future. I don't know how it is in Germany, but in the US, it's also gotten pretty common for zoos to have events catered to adults. I can't help but wonder if another factor in this stuff is the whole "nerds/science are cool!" thing going on right now. Since modern zoos are so heavily geared toward learning, it's less uncool for teenagers and young adults to visit them. General interest in science is increasing. I'm trying to figure out how zoos and aquariums can take advantage of that, and the internet and the memes and the "check out these weird animals!" lists and articles people love so much. The New England Aquarium had some really funny ads a while back.

And agreed, zoos can totally get more money if they work to appeal to a bigger crowd.

 

[azcheetah2]

A good portion of anti-zoo sentiment does come from ignorance on animals, I think. They might see unhappiness where there is none. An animal sleeps all day and they think it's sad, but many animals are more active at night. A solitary animal doesn't need a buddy to be happy. There's also the question of whether animals have the same concept of freedom as we do; so long as their physical and psychological needs are met, do they care if they're confined?

Though I have also seen the opposite, with people seeing an animal in a bad situation and assuming it's happy for a weird reason. That dolphin is smiling, or, that elephant is dancing! (swaying) How cute! Bleh.

I've seen that several times. A female jaguar pacing or sitting by the back of the exhibit is unhappy because she is in captivity or wants to be free when in actuality, there's a male jaguar in another part of the exhibit and they're being kept separate.

The kids jumping in front of 'you' is a huge irritation to me. If there's something special going on at an exhibit, a keeper talk or special enrichment, and I want to see it I make sure to get there early. Then people with kids show up at the last second and I hear the parents tell their kids to 'go get up front' and very rarely do kids say 'excuse me', they just push their way through...literally. More than once a kid has bumped their head on my camera lens or camera while it was hanging around my neck. Bummer for you, kid. You should've been paying attention and shouldn't have tried to squeeze your "8 inch body into a 2 inch space"

 

[Merintia]

2) I don't know if it's the same in other countries or cities but where I live, 'going to the zoo is just for children' is the majority opinion of people, especially teenagers. I don't understand that opinion but many people in my city , when they think of the zoo, think of the waffles and the ice cream and maybe, just maybe of the chimps or lions. The don't even care about really beautiful exhibits , like in Karlsruhe the one for snow leopards, it seems like they don't see them. The same with smaller animals like Geoffrey's Cat in Karlsruhe, those animals are 'boring, lame, uninteresting' just because they are sleeping or not to see. Those people often are the same as those in point 5. If you're a teenager and you say you go to the zoo, let's say alone, it could happen the others say 'you're childish or an outsider'.

Is the same here, and in fact, if you go to a zoo, almost all the visitors are families with children. Sometimes you see young couples too, but is very rare to see groups of young people, or adults. And of course, the really interesting animals are usually ignored, while the enclosures of the typical ones (lions, big apes...) are always crowed. But I can´t complain about that, better for me

About the thread, the most annoying for me are those parents that when arrive to the zoo, lets their children do whatever they want: scream, hit glasses, jump fences, feed animals... No matter if they have signs in front of them, is like the fack of pay a ticket makes them feel on the right to do whatever they want.

 

[Wild wolverine]

OH MY GOSH!! I could go on FOREVER listing off the things that annoy me about other zoo guests, but I'll just name the ones i see most often.
-flash photography when there is clearly a sign.

-when they call the animal something it is not when the sign is right next to them. (Example: look, its an anteater! When its actually a tapir)

-strollers. I understand that some kids can't make it through a whole day walking at a zoo, but they get in the way so much, and half the time, the kids don't even want to ride it so its literally a waste of space.

-shouting at the animals & pounding glass windows/fencing.

-going over or under guard rails. *This is way too abundant at my local zoo.

 

[Wild wolverine]

If you're a teenager and you go to the zoo, alone, it could happen the others say 'you're childish or an outsider'.

I couldn't agree with you more. I'm 15 years old, a guy, and you'd think I'd be sporty or obsessed with video games, right? Nope. I volunteer at my local zoo and love it! I even walk around after I'm done. Sometimes I'm alone, sometimes I go with my uncle or parents who enjoy zoos just as much as I do. I get weird looks from kids AND adults like I shouldn't be there, or like they're keeping a close eye on me to make sure I don't vandalize or steal anything or break the rules. Well sorry everyone has their own likes and dislikes. I like the zoo, and they can think anything they want. It may be childish, but I love it!

 

[ThylacineAlive]

I get weird looks from kids AND adults like I shouldn't be there, or like they're keeping a close eye on me to make sure I don't vandalize or steal anything or break the rules.

I'm 16 and I experience the same thing all the time. It goes back to the idea that zoos are for little kids. I'm not a little kid or on a date, so thus I have no right being there.

~Thylo