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

A bit late to the party, but I specifically remember 2 incidents. One that annoyed me, and one that just kind of suprised me.

So, for the annoying one. I was working at the shark and ray touch tank at the zoo I work at, and it was a particular busy hour. Usually the area is quite a hotspot among guests. And we have this rule in place that splashing in the are isn't allowed. And me, being my paranoid self in these conditions, was mainly focused on telling folks to please not splash in the nicest voice I possibly could at them. The amount of times I had to enforce that rule onto unruly kids ( especially the ones who did it multiple times ) was ridiculous. Hell, someone was even counting and I had managed to tell folks off for this around 28 - 30 times. And the one that bugged me the most were these 2 kids and who I assumed to be their father. I was telling the two to please not splash, and you wanna know what the father tells me? " They're 6. ". Yeah. He said that. It would of been understandable if the two were toddlers, but they were SIX. That is a perfectly reasonable age to understand to not splash in a touch tank. And frankly, I ( albeit nicely ) told the dude off by saying " I'm sorry, we still don't allow splashing here. ". So that was fun. /S.

The second one was more of a suprising one than anything. So, for context, the zoo I work at has this entire baby ( who I assume to be a Retic ) giraffe pelt that the volunteers and education staff can use. So, I was using the pelt in the African area, and suddenly this older gentleman comes up to me. And, not even a second into our interaction, he asks me " Is this for sale? ". I simply told him that no, we weren't selling these, but my god did that interaction give me a good laugh afterwards. Because ah, yes. The random volunteer with the giraffe pelt is obviously going to sell it to you. I had heard about this during my training, but I never expected it to happen to me out of all people.
 
Tyrannosaurus-PicoPico said:
A bit late to the party, but I specifically remember 2 incidents. One that annoyed me, and one that just kind of suprised me.

So, for the annoying one. I was working at the shark and ray touch tank at the zoo I work at, and it was a particular busy hour. Usually the area is quite a hotspot among guests. And we have this rule in place that splashing in the are isn't allowed. And me, being my paranoid self in these conditions, was mainly focused on telling folks to please not splash in the nicest voice I possibly could at them. The amount of times I had to enforce that rule onto unruly kids ( especially the ones who did it multiple times ) was ridiculous. Hell, someone was even counting and I had managed to tell folks off for this around 28 - 30 times. And the one that bugged me the most were these 2 kids and who I assumed to be their father. I was telling the two to please not splash, and you wanna know what the father tells me? " They're 6. ". Yeah. He said that. It would of been understandable if the two were toddlers, but they were SIX. That is a perfectly reasonable age to understand to not splash in a touch tank. And frankly, I ( albeit nicely ) told the dude off by saying " I'm sorry, we still don't allow splashing here. ". So that was fun. /S.

The second one was more of a suprising one than anything. So, for context, the zoo I work at has this entire baby ( who I assume to be a Retic ) giraffe pelt that the volunteers and education staff can use. So, I was using the pelt in the African area, and suddenly this older gentleman comes up to me. And, not even a second into our interaction, he asks me " Is this for sale? ". I simply told him that no, we weren't selling these, but my god did that interaction give me a good laugh afterwards. Because ah, yes. The random volunteer with the giraffe pelt is obviously going to sell it to you. I had heard about this during my training, but I never expected it to happen to me out of all people.
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As a zoo professional who doesn't work with guests directly - interpreters/volunteer coordinators/public facing roles have the patience of a saint! I enjoy talking to guests and don't mind answering questions about the facility/animal care/etc. but I could not be a touch tank worker/volunteer, for example.

S/o to you all who do that work! It can be a thankless job.
 
Working as an educator with real artifacts like horns, hides, etc. I have to regularly tell guests (both kids and adults) that no, the zoo did not kill the animal to get this. All animals will pass away eventually and now their body has an opportunity be used for educational purposes.

This isn't something I hear from people directly but every time a zoo's social media announces that an animal has passed away, there's a bunch of comments saying how it seems like so many zoo animals are dying lately, as if there's some underlying cause or connection. They don't seem to take into account that all of the stories they see are from different zoos and that there are likely millions of individual animals in American zoos alone, so there's always an animal death and news networks cover them because they know those stories always get attention.
 
zoogoer92 said:
As a zoo professional who doesn't work with guests directly - interpreters/volunteer coordinators/public facing roles have the patience of a saint! I enjoy talking to guests and don't mind answering questions about the facility/animal care/etc. but I could not be a touch tank worker/volunteer, for example.

S/o to you all who do that work! It can be a thankless job.
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Luckily I don't have TOO many bad guest interactions under my belt, but heres another one for ya'll just for fun. :]

So, again, this takes place at the infamous touch tank. It's a bit of a slow day this time, so I'm mainly just educating folks on the different kinds of stingrays and sharks we have in the tanks. However there were 2 species I wasn't able to recgonize back then. The Coral Cat Sharks and these fish. And as I was educating these 2 girls and someone who I assumed to be their grandfather, the grandfather asks me what species the Coral Cat Sharks and the fish were. However, I was never told on what species they were. And even if I was told, I have ADHD. And with that comes short term memory loss. So it explains why I still cannot remember the fish's names. But as I told the grandfather that I wasn't sure about the species and apologized for it, he flat out told me " You people are supposed to know these things ". Luckily someone did come to my aid and told the man what they were, but yeah... Let's just say that for the rest of that hour, I felt like I was really stupid. Even though I was never told about the Coral Cat Sharks and the fish in the first place and was only ever told about the rays and the other 2 sharks in the tank at that time.
 
Something… interesting happened at Henry Vilas this past Sunday…
I was volunteering as a gate greeter with a friend, and a woman came up to us and told us that two women were teasing the lions with a puppy they had brought with them. Only service dogs are allowed in the zoo, and this dog clearly wasn’t one, but even if it was, YOU SHOULDN’T TEASE LARGE WITH IT. It’s cruel to the dog, cruel to the lions, cruel to anyone likes animals, it’s just cruel.
This wasn’t my first time dealing with an inappropriate pet. Once, a family brought in a pet bunny. No leash, no carrier, just their youngest boy holding it. I was concerned that the bunny would hear something it never heard before (like the lemurs arguing), get startled, run off, and get lost or get munched. Naturally, I called the staff on the radio all volunteers get for their shifts, and the family left with the bunny before anything bad happened.
Back to the main story, I would’ve called staff on the radio, but the volunteer center was locked when we got there, so no radio for me. I ended up asking the cashier at the gift shop, who led me to his manager, and she called the staff, who spent most of their time by the lions because I forgot to mention the women with the dog went into the Primate House… (that one’s on me)
When the staff met up with the two women, they got into a little argument (that I didn’t hear because it wasn’t my business), but the ladies with the dog must’ve been acting entitled or something, because the staff was royally pissed. She practically scolded them to exit the zoo out the back and carry their dog, which they thankfully did. She then left and came back with one of those landscaping vehicles and went into the primate house. I don’t know what that was for, but I think those women let their dog poop in the primate house and didn’t pick it up…
 
Corangurilla said:
She then left and came back with one of those landscaping vehicles and went into the primate house. I don’t know what that was for, but I think those women let their dog poop in the primate house and didn’t pick it up…
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Cleaning up the mess must have been a very gross experience for the zookeepers, who I doubt have much experience dealing with animal feces ;)
 
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Mickey said:
Well now that's just being a piece of dung if you let your animal poo on a carpeted floor...
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Considering the rest of the story @Corangurilla told, I think the only place those two people belong in is the toilet bowl... seriously, how can people THIS entitled and awful be accepted in society? (Or even celebrated for that matter...)
 
Mickey said:
Well now that's just being a piece of dung if you let your animal poo on a carpeted floor...
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Other than the entitlement Jigre mentioned, you must keep in mind that this is an animal that is not quarantined on the zoo grounds which could bring diseases into the collection. Sure native wildlife (and free roaming peafowl) also waltz around wherever they can reach in the zoo grounds and defecate there as well. But the zoo definitely does not need any more potential outbreaks.
 
PossumRoach said:
Other than the entitlement Jigre mentioned, you must keep in mind that this is an animal that is not quarantined on the zoo grounds which could bring diseases into the collection. Sure native wildlife (and free roaming peafowl) also waltz around wherever they can reach in the zoo grounds and defecate there as well. But the zoo definitely does not need any more potential outbreaks.
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Apparently, American dogs are generally far more diseased than, say, Austrian and German dogs. ;) Given that despite several zoos in said countries (to the bewilderment of @snowleopard ) allowing dogs in, there hasn't been any dog-related disease outbreak in any of these zoos in recent years. At least none that I'm aware of. Stray cats (in particular in regard to toxoplasmosis) and the aforementioned wild animals are a different matter, though...
Nevertheless, that doesn't justify or apologize the erratic behaviour of those women. I wonder how they portrayed the zoo in the social media "OMG, that zoo staff was SO RUDE!!1!1!! Mr. Pringles just wanted to say hi to the poor zoo animals. Zero stars #unfollow #rude #zoosucks #freetheanimals"
 
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In the UK almost no zoos allow dog admission - Cotswolds Wildlife Park being something of an exception to this. Even then, they are not allowed into the wolf area.
 
dillotest0 said:
In the UK almost no zoos allow dog admission - Cotswolds Wildlife Park being something of an exception to this. Even then, they are not allowed into the wolf area.
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It's just a pity that Twycross didn't bring in their no-dog policy a little sooner; from memory, their breeding group of Baikal Seal was wiped out by canine distemper brought in by domestic dogs!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
It's just a pity that Twycross didn't bring in their no-dog policy a little sooner; from memory, their breeding group of Baikal Seal was wiped out by canine distemper brought in by domestic dogs!
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Did they actually breed them? Not on the Bartlett Society list….
 
FBBird said:
Did they actually breed them? Not on the Bartlett Society list….
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I don't think they did, now you come to say it - but they certainly had plenty of them from what I recall hearing. Long before I ever visited, sadly.
 
Batto said:
Nevertheless, that doesn't justify or apologize the erratic behaviour of those women. I wonder how they portrayed the zoo in the social media "OMG, that zoo staff was SO RUDE!!1!1!! Mr. Pringles just wanted to say hi to the poor zoo animals. Zero stars #unfollow #rude #zoosucks #freetheanimals"
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God that really grinds my gears... I am 95% sure they did that. people like that should be banned from the internet; all they do is spread misinformation and cyberbully people who actually do good things.
 
Davdhole said:
I kind of ranted about some things I've heard from guests at the zoo I volunteered at, so I wanted to hear some stories from other zoo-goers/ workers. You can include things like people mixing up species, asking dumb questions, people claiming they can fight and win against certain animals, or other ridiculous things you heard during a visit. Some examples I witnessed at my zoo.


Oh, and even though it wasn't at a zoo, I did hear someone call a shark a reptile

People in the reptile house bragging about chopping up snakes on sight. One lady, during my shift, shared a picture of a copperhead coiled in some leaves near her house, using its camouflage to hide. She claimed it was ready to attack and went on to say she killed it. Also, people teaching their kids about snakes using the terms good and bad. Something about hearing "that's a bad snake" just rubs me the wrong way. For a second forget the fact you slaughter a legless animal smaller than you with pride and enjoy the many animals you'll seldom see.

A lady in the African section near the large sign that said "African Plains", while in front of the elephant exhibit with the sign saying "African elephant," asking if these were Indian elephants.

The Komodo dragon being mistaken for an alligator by a grown woman.

This didn't irritate me, but more so caught me off guard. A guest shocked when she read that lemurs are from Madagascar. My co-volunteer with me was just as shocked about the guest's lemur range discovery.

A guest assuming the zoo drugs the animals because the lions were sleeping.

And the common "look at the monkeys" while at an ape exhibit. There's many more, but I don't want to make this post as big as my rant in the other thread. Feel free to share as many ridiculous things that you can think of.
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Misidentifications can be quite annoying. It's surprising how many guests get tigers and lions mixed up. Same for wild dogs and hyenas.
By far the worst misidentification I've ever heard was a dude who thought a sea lion was a stingray.
 
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