When did you start to be interested in zoos?

When I was 3 years old my parent took me to the Tilburgse dierentuin ( closed now ) and they noticed that I was realy intrested in everything which was living there and I most enjoyed riding on a Giant tortoise ( yes, I'm ashamed now but in those days - it was 1968 - this was a normal pracise ).
Because I had enjoyed this visit so much, they started to went with me to other zoos as well - Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. As soon as I was able to travel myself ( at 12 - 13 years old ) I went with a friend every vacation to all major ( and less major ) Dutch and Belgium zoos.
When in school the question came which profesion you wanted to become later I didn't answer firefigther, cop or superman but it was zoo-keeper !
Later I realy became a zoo-keeper :).
 
My brother loved animals and when I was little I hung out with him a lot and wanted to be like him, so I've always liked zoos and animals. I started keeping track of animals at zoos at the beginning of this year.
 
Junklekitteb said:
Don't worry we don't mind at all:p
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Oh it's completely embarassing. What seemed so insignificant on a map back then turned out to be a bit of Karnataka, a quarter of Maharashtra, large chunks of Madhya and Andhra Pradesh, and, like, half of Chhattisgarh.

Just enough room for my bungalow, some elephants, and an arse load of tigers.
 
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I first got into zoos when My kindergarten class went on a field trip to the Minnesota zoo, I’ve gradually gotten more interested in zoos every since and now I’m obsessed with them.
 
When I was 2 years old my parents took me to the Seneca Park Zoo, I noticed the zookeepers working and all the animals around us and immediately took an interest. Afterwards, they and my grandparents took me to any zoo around us whenever we went away or when we would move; during this time I also learned more about animals(I could tell the difference between African and Asian elephants at 4-5 years old). Now I’ve worked as a volunteer and seasonal keeper at SPZ and plan to come back when this pandemic is over, and aim to make my career out of working in the zoo industry with eventual plans to open my own facility or assume the director position of one.
 
I’m not exactly sure when I started liking zoos specifically, but I can tell you when I started liking animals. I was about 18 months old, and one day, my mom took me to Walmart to run some errands. We happened to be in the toy section, and I was playing with a plastic giraffe, while my mom was looking at something else. Eventually, we had to go, so she took the giraffe from my hand and put it back on the shelf. I started to cry, and my mom started to get concerned. As a baby, I didn’t cry often, and my mom has taken toys out of my hand like that before, without any reaction from me. She bought me the giraffe and also a lion and an elephant. I was so happy, and I started to take an interest in animals. Not until a couple years later, I went to my first zoo, I think the San Diego Zoo, and I was shocked to realize that animals were real, and not just toys. This only strengthened my love for animals, and ever since then, I loved anything and everything animals. This was also about the time where I started liking birds especially.
 
Have always visited zoos since I was born. Love of animals soon followed, and my affinity with zoos and animals continues to today!:)
 
I got interested in zoos since I was even younger than a year old. My parents told me that I would sit for hours looking at squirrels outside, and that sounds pretty accurate. Then I think my very first zoo was the Philadelphia zoo when I was three, then I went to T&D's cats of the world, then reptileland, and then soon out of Pennsylvania and too Cincinnati, Columbus, shedd aquarium, Omaha, and more. But I wouldn't actually say zoos were my love for animals entirely. I got my main love for animals (and I do like animals in general more than I like zoological institutions) from literature, and just looking at the drawings and pictures of animals in books. Zoos were an offer to see my imagination come to life, because when I was younger I literally sat for hours just reading animal books, as I was a very good reader at a young age. My main interests as a child were definitely reptiles, Crabs, (for some reason:confused:) and Most prominently, small carnivores, particularly small cats. When I was six I knew more animals then my own mother, oh, those were the days. Now I am mainly interested in virtually everything, I like them all. Mainly invertebrates, Particularly microscopic species such as rotifers and tardigrades, Crustaceans, Cephalapods, Bryozoans (a lot) and other simple beauties. The interesting thing is, I liked more animals later on than when I was younger. WHen I was younger, hoofstock never interested me, Primates did. Now I like both. When I was younger, Frogs never interested me, Salamanders did. Now I like both. And when I was younger I didn't even know what a Bryozoan was. And some recent interest's like Tunicates are something that I continue to love more and more.
 
CheeseChameleon2007 said:
I got interested in zoos since I was even younger than a year old. My parents told me that I would sit for hours looking at squirrels outside, and that sounds pretty accurate. Then I think my very first zoo was the Philadelphia zoo when I was three, then I went to T&D's cats of the world, then reptileland, and then soon out of Pennsylvania and too Cincinnati, Columbus, shedd aquarium, Omaha, and more. But I wouldn't actually say zoos were my love for animals entirely. I got my main love for animals (and I do like animals in general more than I like zoological institutions) from literature, and just looking at the drawings and pictures of animals in books. Zoos were an offer to see my imagination come to life, because when I was younger I literally sat for hours just reading animal books, as I was a very good reader at a young age. My main interests as a child were definitely reptiles, Crabs, (for some reason:confused:) and Most prominently, small carnivores, particularly small cats. When I was six I knew more animals then my own mother, oh, those were the days. Now I am mainly interested in virtually everything, I like them all. Mainly invertebrates, Particularly microscopic species such as rotifers and tardigrades, Crustaceans, Cephalapods, Bryozoans (a lot) and other simple beauties. The interesting thing is, I liked more animals later on than when I was younger. WHen I was younger, hoofstock never interested me, Primates did. Now I like both. When I was younger, Frogs never interested me, Salamanders did. Now I like both. And when I was younger I didn't even know what a Bryozoan was. And some recent interest's like Tunicates are something that I continue to love more and more.
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It's very strange that somebody here interested in microscopic species. I'm not really...
 
My first trip to a zoo was when I was two or three. I don't remember much of it but I'm told I enjoyed it. I remember the one I visited when I was six (Louisville) and really liked that one. I've always tried to go to them whenever possible.
 
I'm a big fan of animals, so the first time I went to the San Diego Zoo and saw a baby panda when I was great. Also later I started Zoo Tycoon and other zoo building games, so that built upon it. I got into aquariums (probably more than zoos at this point) after seeing the great white at Monterey.
 
I’ve loved animals for as long as I can remember, so my parents would frequently take me to the Memphis Zoo when I was a kid, and whenever we would take a trip to a place with a major zoo or aquarium we would always try to go there. I started to get more seriously interested in zoos and not just wild animals in general as a teenager when I started to consider becoming a zookeeper. Hasn’t quite worked out yet but I’m hoping it eventually will.
 
I remember my grandpa holding me has he was showing me a stray dog which is the first animal, let alone the first dog, I ever saw. I remember just liking animals more than anything else as a kid. I do remember Zoboomafoo amplifying my passion for animals. Then people in my class and my mom's friends were complimenting my animal knowledge as if I was some award winning taxonomist giving me my undeserved ego boost.

My story with zoos however is weird because I don't remember where I exactly visited when I was around 3 years old but it was in the United States it had a butterfly house, baboons, a course, and a flight show. However, my perception towards zoos got extremely tarnished when I visited my childhood city's zoo (If you want to know how bad it was feel free to PM me). If I was asked about zoos as a kid until 8 I would have said "zoos bad, shut them down". That mindset changed thanks to my visit to the Bronx zoo. I've been to prospect park zoo before but that trip was ruined because of my cousins arguing and fighting with each other and one of my cousins taking away my camera from me. It is Bronx where I learned about this great thing called conservation and how it could make a zoo good (pretty ironic considering my current stance). It's also when I realized how bad Turkey was regarding zoos and captive exotic animals.
 
Ever since my first visit to Taman Safari when I was a toddler, I become obsessed with animals. I owned books of them, toys of them, and I always watch shows about them in Nat Geo Wild. I got really interested in going to zoos around 14 years old, that's when I first visited Berlin Zoo and fall in love with that place.
 
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