What is/are the worst kinds of zoo visitors?

SusScrofa said:
School field trips. You arrive early on a weekday thinking you will have no crowds at the zoo and thousands of annoying screaming kids are everywhere. And I swear to god every zoo in this country has a school field trip every day of the school year.
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I'm going to specify this a bit and say chaperones who don't do their jobs are the problem. I've seen many school field trips at zoos that are well-behaved and in these cases it's a great educational opportunity and not overly disruptive to other visitors. I've also seen field trip groups that are the exact opposite, due to not having diligent chaperones to ensure the safety/behavior of the students.

birdsandbats said:
One thing influencing this is just the sheer number of zoos in Wisconsin. If a school wants to go on a field trip to a zoo, sure there's probably a few close-by "roadside" or municipal zoos, but it's just easier to drive another half hour or so to go to one of the AZA zoos. Wisconsin's AZA facilities all correspond with the state's major population centers so chances are they aren't far from one of them. For example, my school would always go on field trips to the NEW Zoo, despite the fact that there were several zoos much closer than that.

But of course, it's getting harder and harder to even find school willing to take field trips anymore, at least in this state.
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I can't speak for Wisconsin, but in the northeast field trips are making a comeback. Yes, they went away for a few years during COVID, but they've become more common again. Typically, there is a "field trip season" during the spring in which they are most common. I know Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island (obviously a much less zoo-dense state than Wisconsin) has had individual days this year in which the number of field trip visitors alone topped 1,500 people.
 
Neil chace said:
I can't speak for Wisconsin, but in the northeast field trips are making a comeback. Yes, they went away for a few years during COVID, but they've become more common again. Typically, there is a "field trip season" during the spring in which they are most common. I know Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island (obviously a much less zoo-dense state than Wisconsin) has had individual days this year in which the number of field trip visitors alone topped 1,500 people.
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Over here people are starting charter schools specifically for the purpose of still having field trips, since it's so rare for schools to do them under normal circumstances. Of course, then you run into all of the problems that charter schools get...
 
The Alligator Lad said:
This is more of an annoyance than anything else, though is still frustrating whenever you hear it: people who don't read the signs, and go up to an Orangutan and go "look at the monkey!" or "look at the crocodile" to an american alligator. Like, its not that hard to glance at a sign for two seconds!
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Apes are monkeys
 
Nile Hippo Expert said:
If a primate has a tail then it's a monkey but if it doesn't have a tail it's an ape. The only exception is the Barbary macaque, which is a tailless monkey.
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Nah, the way cladistics works is that, since you can't remove great apes from the clade of monkeys while still having the New and Old World Monkeys in 1 clade, they and the apes are all monkeys.

It's the same way that whales are fish and that birds are reptiles.
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tigris115 said:
Nah, the way cladistics works is that, since you can't remove great apes from the clade of monkeys while still having the New and Old World Monkeys in 1 clade, they and the apes are all monkeys.

It's the same way that whales are fish and that birds are reptiles.
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Apes are monkeys only in the same way that birds are reptiles and mammals are fish. They're only true of you think that all words we use to refer to animals with need to be monophyletic. I don't think that needs to be the case.
 
There are a lot. To get the obvious out of the way, the people who actively hate or at least dislike zoos and yet they are at one. I really cannot comprehend why people are choosing to spend their free time and often their money too at a place they despise so much. I personally wish I had so much free time that I was willing to spend some of it it at a place I do not like.

Another thing that makes me really mad is when people spend their visit in reckless disregard to the spatial needs of the thousands of other people they are sharing the zoo with on any given day. A lot of people just stop in the middle of narrow pathways for seemingly no reason rather than finding an opportunity to go off to the side. In a similar vein, all the large groups that will spread out to cover an entire pathway instead of just walking in a single file line, and then all proceed to walk at a snail's pace.

Also all the parents yelling at their kids. Nobody wants to listen to that. On the other hand, their are other parents who are overly permissive of their kids, and make no effort to stop their kids from chasing or trying to touch free roaming animals or animals in walkthroughs.
 
The one type of zoo visitor that really really makes me angry are the visitors who try and get an animal's attention. And the parents of children who don't dissuade that behavior.

Don't get me wrong- I'm known to approach an enclosure and say "Hi gorgeous!!" or "Hey there [insert cutesy nickname]". But I think there's a big difference between quietly greeting an animal versus trying to get their attention; tutting at them, repeatedly calling their name/shouting at it, tapping at glass, or my least favorite of all- making animal noises at them. Hissing/growing/meowing at big cats, barking and howling at wolves, cawing at birds... it just drives me nuts. I cannot imagine being in the position of the animal, surrounded by people mocking you with loud repetitive noises all day. It just feels disrespectful- it's a hill I'll die on.

I visited my local zoo twice in the last week with two different friends. One was very respectful; pretty quiet, very observant, making comments but not trying to get the animal's attention. The other tutted a lot and while they didn't make a ton of ruckus or animal noises, there was a definite difference in their approach. It got really grating.

That's really the only category that I vehemently hate, though. I hold no resentment towards children below the age of like 10 or 11 in any instance- only their parents. (Once you hit preteen territory my patience wanes lol). I will say that I quite dislike people with huge strollers, like the big covered wagon type cart things... I've never seen someone who both has one of them and is conscious and mindful of the people around them.
 
birdsandbats said:
Apes are monkeys only in the same way that birds are reptiles and mammals are fish. They're only true of you think that all words we use to refer to animals with need to be monophyletic. I don't think that needs to be the case.
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Thank you. It's like the adage "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that you shouldn't put one in a fruit salad." In this case, yes, apes are monkeys, but no, gorillas, orangutans, etc. are not referred to as monkeys in widespread and commonly understood English usage even among animal nerds and insistently doing so is just going to ruffle people's feathers.

Unless you're going to take the whole thing to its logical conclusion and just call literally everything fish, which, well, can't argue with that.
 
biggest_dreamer said:
Thank you. It's like the adage "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that you shouldn't put one in a fruit salad." In this case, yes, apes are monkeys, but no, gorillas, orangutans, etc. are not referred to as monkeys in widespread and commonly understood English usage even among animal nerds and insistently doing so is just going to ruffle people's feathers.

Unless you're going to take the whole thing to its logical conclusion and just call literally everything fish, which, well, can't argue with that.
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I just like saying such things to screw with people
 
This type is particularly prevalent in NZ Zoos in Kiwi nocturnal houses: The people who are really loud in indoor spaces. At Auckland Zoo, there is a sign in front of the entrance to the Kiwi house that tells guests to be quiet, and on my last visit there were people practically yelling across the night house to eachother. Thankfully the kiwi were behind glass so they weren't frightened by those numbskulls hollering.
 
The Alligator Lad said:
This type is particularly prevalent in NZ Zoos in Kiwi nocturnal houses: The people who are really loud in indoor spaces. At Auckland Zoo, there is a sign in front of the entrance to the Kiwi house that tells guests to be quiet, and on my last visit there were people practically yelling across the night house to eachother. Thankfully the kiwi were behind glass so they weren't frightened by those numbskulls hollering.
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Working at one, it can get pretty bad, to the point we just dont allow people to take pictures in the nocturnal house anymore
 
Aside from insects, other zoo visitors that I also hate are people who repeatedly try to make the animals show off by giving them common commands they have, for example when people say "*name* open" to a hippo so that they can their giant mouth open all the way or making animal noises so that they can try to make the animals talk to them (e.g calling an elephant's name and then making their trumpeting noise, trying to get a "response" from the elephant). And I'm not talking about people who just do this once, I have seen an adult do this for 20 minutes nonstop and it is really annoying.
 
People who try and feed animals even when they're not supposed to. This used to be a big problem at my local zoo where people would hide food in their bags and feed them to the animals, food would be inappropriate as well, with junk food, salted food and fruits for primarily grass-eating animals. Things have gotten better now that the zoo checks bags before entry and there are zookeepers nearby to discourage such behaviour, there are also designated feeding stations where you can pay to feed animals.

I'm not as bothered with kids, but it does remind me of one time where I was talking to a zookeeper and she sprinted mid-conversation to tell a kid who was playing with clackers to stop.
 
I just got back from a visit to Marwell and they now have signs throughout their Life Among the Trees exhibit asking people not to tap on the glass windows. They have also added signs around their red panda enclosure asking people not to climb on the enclosure walls. Something must have happened to make them put those signs up.

This made me think, do signs work? At their okapi house Marwell have large signs outside saying that okapis are nervous animals and I can't remember a time when people haven't been quiet inside.
 
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