What's something you heard at a zoo or aquarium from another guest that irritated you?

Yoshistar888 said:
On the topic of African Wild Dog stories.

April 2019 and I’m at Weribee zoos African Wild Dog enclosure, despite the signs a person called them a hyena, that wasn’t what bothered me....

He said this to his son that he was holding (about 2-3 years old). (You see this, Hyena, if you fall in with it, it will eat you alive and strip you to the bone)

I was appalled when I heard this.
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Whenever I'm at the African wild dog exhibit I hear so many people calling them hyenas. They don't even look that much alike??
 
cloudedleopard611 said:
Ugh, I have so many. One time I was watching the red panda and a little girl, about four years old, called it a fox. Her mom berated her and told her that it wasn't a fox, and that it was actually a red panda. While I don't think the mom was in the wrong for correcting the kid, she did not need to yell at the kid. I've also seen a lot of bad conduct at the Kansas City Zoo. I'm not sure what it is but I feel like I always see more bad behavior there than any other zoo. For example, there was a little kid who kept swinging his monkey stuffed animal around in the antelope enclosure (it's structured so that the visitors walk on an elevated trail and overlook the animals), and the dad not only didn't try to stop him but seemed to be actively encouraging it. I saw a guy once shaking hands with a baby orangutan, people trying to feed monkeys human food through the mesh, all kinds of really unideal stuff. The Kansas City Zoo is a good zoo but its always really frustrating to see people disrespect the animals like that.
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Also another thing I forgot to mention is people always comment that the jaguar is fat and looks unhealthy. The jaguar at the zoo in question, the St. Louis Zoo looks perfectly healthy and exactly how his species is supposed to look. I think its because the general public can't tell the difference between leopards, jaguars, and cheetahs and tend to lump them together, so they think of jaguars as being lean like leopards or especially cheetahs. The reality, which they don't seem to understand, its that jaguars are supposed to be super stocky. Of course, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but it gets my big cat nerd blood boiling.
 
KevinB said:
Some gems from yesterday at the Beekse Bergen, including some a couple very tired old classics.
  • A pelican being called a stork.
  • A rhinoceros being called a hippopotamus.
  • African wild dogs being called hyenas.
  • Antelopes of various types and sizes being called deer.
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My favorite deers are the spiral-horned ones
 
Lafone said:
Not irritating just amusing really but at Hamerton the other day watching a man explain 'those are the ring tailed llamas' to his children. While looking at the alpacas. Nowhere near the lemurs. Those endangered Madagascan Llamas, good to see them being protected.
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Actually I am impressed that the term "ring-tailed" lemurs was embedded
in his consciousness. One small step...
 
KevinB said:
Some gems from yesterday at the Beekse Bergen, including some a couple very tired old classics.
  • A pelican being called a stork.
  • A rhinoceros being called a hippopotamus.
  • African wild dogs being called hyenas.
  • Antelopes of various types and sizes being called deer.
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The mother of my 2.5 year old son admitted she used to call a flamingo a pelican on our latest zoo visit. She’s a highly intelligent woman, but zoology isn’t her area of interest so it doesn’t irritate me. I’d no doubt make equivalent blunders discussing musicals or other topics I know nothing about.

Our son calls eels snakes etc. but given his age and that he’s the first of any of my children to show an interest in zoo animals, I’m happy for him to form basic associations and build from there.

I was impressed he pointed out the elephant chewing food with her teeth to me. I still overhear adults on my visits who believe elephants eat and drink exclusively through their trunk.
 
Zoofan15 said:
The mother of my 2.5 year old son admitted she used to call a flamingo a pelican on our latest zoo visit. She’s a highly intelligent woman, but zoology isn’t her area of interest so it doesn’t irritate me. I’d no doubt make equivalent blunders discussing musicals or other topics I know nothing about.

Our son calls eels snakes etc. but given his age and that he’s the first of any of my children to show an interest in zoo animals, I’m happy for him to form basic associations and build from there.

I was impressed he pointed out the elephant chewing food with her teeth to me. I still overhear adults on my visits who believe elephants eat and drink exclusively through their trunk.
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Admittedly my post may have been a little overly judgemental and not have taken some of these aspects into mind. I admit I often have trouble understanding the level of zoological knowledge (or lack thereof) of average citizens. But one aspect that still irritates me that some of these people could or would have seen signage, but still chose to ignore that information.

Good luck fostering your son's interests.
 
KevinB said:
Admittedly my post may have been a little overly judgemental and not have taken some of these aspects into mind. I admit I often have trouble understanding the level of zoological knowledge (or lack thereof) of average citizens. But one aspect that still irritates me that some of these people could or would have seen signage, but still chose to ignore that information.

Good luck fostering your son's interests.
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Your post wasn’t judgemental at all. If it’d been anyone else at the zoo that day referring to the flamingos as pelicans I would have snorted and thought they was an idiot. But knowing the person who said it wasn’t gave me a different perspective from what I’d otherwise have.

Thank you. At the moment his main goal in life is to be the next Spider-Man, but considering my children before him have been fascinated by everything at the zoo except the animals, I’m encouraged by the engagement he’s shown so far. :)
 
-Calling scarlet ibis “baby flamingos”
-Making monkey noises at siamangs
-Throwing food pellets meant for farm animals to a group of unwilling capybaras
-Calling hornbills “toucans”
 
Ok, dusting off and old one here. So, it looks like Zoochatters hate it when people howl at captive wolves, right? In 2008/2009, me and my family had just moved to Arizona and we went up north with some friends to Out of Africa. After the show at the Tiger Splash arena, I (who was 7 or 8 at the time) went to get a closer look at the Spotted Hyenas, who I had never seen in-person before, with my younger sister (who couldn't have been older than 5) and two of her friends.
One of the hyenas was right at the fence, and then, for some reason, my sister and her two friends started howling at it! Naturally, the hyena didn't take too kindly to being howled at, and growled in annoyance. Thankfully, I stepped in and broke things up, leading my sister and her friends away from the hyena enclosure before things got nasty.
It didn't annoy me in the moment (I'm annoyed in retrospect), but it sure annoyed the hyena ;).
 
Corangurilla said:
Ok, dusting off and old one here. So, it looks like Zoochatters hate it when people howl at captive wolves, right? In 2008/2009, me and my family had just moved to Arizona and we went up north with some friends to Out of Africa. After the show at the Tiger Splash arena, I (who was 7 or 8 at the time) went to get a closer look at the Spotted Hyenas, who I had never seen in-person before, with my younger sister (who couldn't have been older than 5) and two of her friends.
One of the hyenas was right at the fence, and then, for some reason, my sister and her two friends started howling at it! Naturally, the hyena didn't take too kindly to being howled at, and growled in annoyance. Thankfully, I stepped in and broke things up, leading my sister and her friends away from the hyena enclosure before things got nasty.
It didn't annoy me in the moment (I'm annoyed in retrospect), but it sure annoyed the hyena ;).
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I'm more annoyed that they think hyena is a wolf.
 
birdsandbats said:
Today I heard a zoo visitor claim that one of the lionesses was actually a male with his mane shaved off. I know it wasn't that he thought all Lions had manes, either, because he correctly recognized the other maneless Lion as a lioness.
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That's definitely one of the more unusual instances reported here so far!
 
birdsandbats said:
Today I heard a zoo visitor claim that one of the lionesses was actually a male with his mane shaved off. I know it wasn't that he thought all Lions had manes, either, because he correctly recognized the other maneless Lion as a lioness.
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Good luck shaving a mane off of a lion :D

I'm really tired of people yelling "hello" at anything they consider a parrot.
 
birdsandbats said:
Today I heard a zoo visitor claim that one of the lionesses was actually a male with his mane shaved off. I know it wasn't that he thought all Lions had manes, either, because he correctly recognized the other maneless Lion as a lioness.
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I’ve seen a number of “Did you know?” style posts on social media in recent months around lions informing people that castrated male lions lose their mane and that lionesses can grow manes (we’ve had two lionesses grow manes in Australasian zoos alone in recent years).

I imagine it’s making the general public think twice about what they see in a zoo exhibit and perhaps trying to sound educated in front of their friends/dates.

Alternatively, there was all that drivel a few weeks ago about a zoo reportedly giving their male lion a haircut that went viral for some reason. That probably confused that visitor even more.
 
At the very end of 2013, my family went to Las Vegas and we stayed at the MGM. Naturally, we went to the Mandalay Bay aquarium (after much begging from 12-year old me). As we passed the piranha tank, I was telling my mother that piranhas weren’t nearly as scary or vicious as people think they are and that they have lots of predators.
I said something like, “Even river dolphins eat them”, and this caught the attention of a guy standing in front of the piranha tank (I think he was a staff/volunteer, but there isn’t a “something a zoo staff said that annoyed you” thread, is there?), and he responded like I had just insulted his family . He kept going on about how “River dolphins are so awesome and tough”, which they absolutely are, but I was never saying they weren’t.
My family was naturally weirded out and we went on to the saltwater part of the aquarium.
I think this guy might’ve been a Boto Encantado in disguise.
 
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