Visitors Banging on Glass

M

Mike11

Well-Known Member
Having just read the people feeding animals thread this thought came to my head.
This most of happened to everybody who has once been caught in the frustration of what to do when people are banging on the glass.
Well,
During last Easter i went to Chessington with family and friends and at around 5.30 we were at the zoo when a group of about 6 or so 18 year old's + started banging on the glass at the Lion enclosure with Ashok and the last female they had (forgotten name) were at the glass.Out of the Shock i said 'Dont do that please, how would you like people to bang on your window?' They got the point gave me a long hard stare and went.Before i'd relised the 18 year old i was with had dissapeared behind the Lion info sign and was as scared as i was!
Thought we coulds share are stories about how some visitors can behave ;)
 
If they just do it once I've let it go, but some just continually do it (my aunty is guilty of it), that's really taking the mick but no one realises they might be scaring whatever is behind the glass!
 
Yeah little children do it once are normally told off by parents but a gang of teens doing it repeatedly and shouted i really felt i had to do something!
 
I've mentioned my experience of this in the feeding thread, and I remembered feeling quite nervous when I told the man yelling at Yasmin the Snow Leopard for a photo to stop it: I was 14 and he was much older and sounding quite ferocious in what he was doing, but I managed to silence him.
No one though wanted to stop an argument between two shreiking women with young families in the Heart of Africa house, and a circle of vistors had actually formed around them, it was the like the EastEnders Zoo Tour! There had been a lot of visitor misbehaviour that day; two children had been bitten by penguins, a toddler dropped it's dummy in the coati enclosure (which the coati promptly put in it's mouth), a child pushed a pencil into the chipmunk aviary and the keepers had the very stressful task of trying to recapture a tamarin in the bush walk that had been purposley released from it's walk-through enclosure by a visitor.
 
your right it can be very nerveracking and i was too but they soon get the idea.We just want whats best for the animals :)
 
I've posted this before but my partner had a run in with someone banging on the glass at Colchester ..... in the indoor lion enclosure, where Leoni was at the time.

What was worse was that this was a couple of blokes in their mid to late 30s (accompanied, I have to say (and I know this sounds ******) by a couple of rough looking women dressed really inappropriately for the zoo in mini skirts and heels) who were banging and shouting. My partner asked them not to, perfectly reasonably: "hey mate, don't bang on the glass" and was greeted with "why not". My partner then said "because it disturbs them" and these idiots then literally squared up to him, all puffed up and retorting "where does it say not to bang on the f****** glass ? where does it f****** say it disturbs them ?". At which point I stepped in and shrieked at them that any adult with a shred of intelligence should not have to have it spelt out to them in words of one syllable and furthermore would they please refrain from swearing like that in front of my 5 year old daughter.

Thankfully they scuttled off at that point, muttering under their breath and it didn't escalate but I was seeing red, having already been wound up by their disregard for the animal and then to hear them behave like that in front of kids ..... all my protective mother instincts came out.

We also saw a pair of similarly aged idiots at one of the chimp enclosures at Twycross ..... not only were they banging but also hollering "ooh ooh ahh ahh", beating their chests in a gorilla fashion :confused: and succeeding in winding up 3 or 4 of the chimps who were rushing about and sounding distressed. They smelt like they'd been drinking :rolleyes: and again, were presumably doing the big showing off thing in front of their girlfriends who must be extremely simple if they were impressed by something like that.

Maybe the glass should be electrocuted ? - that'd soon stop them. Mind you, it wouldn't be so good for anyone like myself who likes to press their camera up against it !
 
I went to Dublin in July and I was pleased with the behaviour of the visitors.

People definately understood the meaning of 'Do Not Feed', 'Do Not Bang On The Glass' and 'Exit Only'.

Also a few young children were running about and were promptly told to styop by their parents.

If only all zoos were like that.
 
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I've found the Aspinall Parks have a fairly good 'average' visitor. It was just wonderful to see groups of people of all ages watching the gorillas at Howletts in amazement without any screaming children or public feeding.
 
I sometimes accidently gently bang my camera lens on the glass when trying to get the lens hood flat on the enclosure! I always find myself apologising to the animal incase I have disturbed them in anyway :D :rolleyes: (I am talking bout a very gentle tap)

I was having this discussion with a keeper the other night Why do people feel that the animals in the zoo need to 'perform' for them in anyway and are not happy just to see them :mad: It not a circus
 
karenZOO said:
I was having this discussion with a keeper the other night Why do people feel that the animals in the zoo need to 'perform' for them in anyway and are not happy just to see them :mad: It not a circus
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Good point.

On tours one can always underline that as the zoo inhabitants are WILD CREATURES it is so fine an endeavour just to discover animals in an enclosure are alive and just need that extra bit of energy to be seen (without the obvious disturbance ... :) of course). Well, then people turn round and seem to grasp what great angle for discovering wildlife a zoo really is!!!
 
I'm sure most species have learnt to process the stress and intrusion of offensive visitors, even if we haven't. What is unpleasant is when the animal has nowhere to go in the exhibit to get away from the noise/sight/smell.

This thread is extremely relevant for aquaria.
 
I can't believe the behaviour of people visiting zoos. One thing that particularly sticks in my head happened the last time I was at Monkey World. I heard over the radio that they had caught a group of teenage boys trying to climb into the orangutan enclosure!
 
As I said in the feeding thread, I'm forever telling off kids for tapping, banging and slapping the tanks at work. Also even gently pushing fingers against the glass annoys me, but thats mainly because I have to then go along and whipe off greasy fingerprints left behind.

Some kids will also find it appropriate to run along the small gap behind the tanks as well as lift up the hoods and place their fingers in the water. I'll confess to being particularly satisfied when one person did this to the tank that we'd just discovered had a faulty heater. They'd stuck their fingers in the water whilst the top of their hand was touching the metal lid. They withdrew their hand quickly from the electric shock they recieved. :rolleyes:

I was talking to Geoff Read in the Reptile House at Marwell two or three weeks ago, and there was a young boy drumming his fists on the glass of one of the snake tanks whilst the parents watched him do it. He explained to me that its because of this that the animals on show get so wound up that they become aggressive and unwise to handle, meaning they have to keep a number off show for handling purposes.

Not meaning to spark another thread about things that people do in zoos that are annoying, is when people use their flash. Especially in nocturnal houses. :mad:
 
HuxleyPig said:
Not meaning to spark another thread about things that people do in zoos that are annoying, is when people use their flash. Especially in nocturnal houses. :mad:
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I know with a lot of cameras the flash automaticly comes on but people still keep flashing away when all they are gonna get is pictures of the glare off the glass anyway :confused:

Maybe we should follow them out to their cars and wait for them to get in, then start pounding on the windows :p :rolleyes: that would give them some idea of what it feels like :D
 
HuxleyPig said:
I was talking to Geoff Read in the Reptile House at Marwell two or three weeks ago, and there was a young boy drumming his fists on the glass of one of the snake tanks whilst the parents watched him do it. He explained to me that its because of this that the animals on show get so wound up that they become aggressive and unwise to handle, meaning they have to keep a number off show for handling purposes.

Not meaning to spark another thread about things that people do in zoos that are annoying, is when people use their flash. Especially in nocturnal houses. :mad:
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That explains a lot; if you look on the animal inventory for 2008 on the website, you'll see Marwell has a huge number of herps that aren't even on display. I think that the amphibian centre is well designed in the way that even if visitors bang on the glass, it does little to disturb the animals due to the fact the vivariums themselves are not directly open to the public.
 
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