Zoo animals reaction to children

karenZOO

karenZOO

Well-Known Member
I have just become a Grannie on Wednesday for the first time (I must point out a not too old one :D ) to baby Noah (named after my love/families love of animals and Karen is an awful name for a boy!! :p )

Obviously he will be a very frequent visitor to Colchester Zoo (his parent are cardholders to) and I cannot wait to introduce him to all the animals and was wondering if anyone had experienced or noticed any reaction from the animals to babies and very young children?

I think I am expecting some sort of 'circle of life' type of reaction :p but mostly I have been really looking forward to introducing Noah to Rajang for the first time, but am also concerned this might stress or upset Rajang?
For anyone that doesn't know or heard of Rajang he is the elderly male orang utan who was hand raised and has a special relationship with (alot) of visitors and interacts quite happily, but always makes you feel like its special just to you. He will put up his hand to yours through the glass, kiss you, stare into your eyes and loves looking a pretty young girls belly buttons lol.

I know that the Aspinall family introduced their children to their gorillas, something that would terrify me! and I am talking about just holding him up. On busy noisy days at the zoo I am usually the one that is suggesting feeding some of the noisest, annoying kids to the animals:p

One of the female lioness has taken to stalking small children at Colchester and her stare, causes shivers down your spine. She has reduced children to tears and parents to move them quickly out of the way. That is not the sort of reaction I am hoping for!

Really this post is just asking if other zoochatters, parents, grandparents have had or experienced any reactions from zoo animals, whether positive or negative or will I just be left holding Noah up on a lump of Colchester Zoo's fake rock singing lion king songs badly till they throw me out :D
 
Firslty congratulations! secondly I would imagine the orangutan is going to get more out of seeing baby Noah then Noah's is going to get out of seeing animals. Ive learnt that if you push the whole 'look how amazing animals are' too hard to young children you can really risk alienating them and leading them to not really appreciate animals at all, has anyone else found this?

I wish a lion king moment to happen though!
 
Dagu, the male Sumatran Orang at Jersey, seems to sit close to the glass to be near children on the other side, and to take a real interest in them.
 
karenZOO said:
but mostly I have been really looking forward to introducing Noah to Rajang for the first time, but am also concerned this might stress or upset Rajang?
that the Aspinall family introduced their children to their gorillas, something that would terrify me! and I am talking about just holding him up. On busy noisy days at the zoo I am usually the one that is suggesting feeding some of the noisest, annoying kids to the animals:p
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I think you'll find Rajang will have experienced and seen very many children and small babies during his many years at Colchester. Admittedly not many people hold them up close to 'meet' him but I don't think he would be at all bothered by that, maybe a bit curious.

You are correct the Aspinall family did introduce their small children to play with the Gorillas. However I believe it was only with females and/or youngsters and the silverback male was not present during those sessions-at least he wasn't visible in any of the videos I've seen where children were in the enclosure..

So will Noah's birthday cakes in the future be modelled with 'fake rock' icing perhaps? :)
 
Young chimps seem to like playing running & hiding game with small children. The Monkey World nursery chimps were rivetted when some people stripped off a kid (about 4 yrs old) by one of their windows.

A small (2 or 3 yrs old) child was screaming (Monkey World Nursery again) in obvious distress and the parents were asking for a first aider, Sally the adult female chimp dashed right up the enclosure after them and through the house to a window where she could see where they went, she obviously knew it wasn't just another screaming child.

There used to be a sign at Jersey encouraging kids to climb on a frame because it was interesting for the gorillas. It probably just made them feel superior!
 
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I took my niece to a zoo last week and the snow leopard cubs had a reaction to her. One seemed to enjoy seeing her and her stroller and would stalk her wherever she went. This was actually not scary for my niece, as to her it was just a big kitty cat. To us it was actually cute as the cub just mostly stared and looked like he was going to pounce, but never really did. At one point he did get on his hind legs but it wasn't scary, it was adorable. We also tried to get the otters attention as they are quite loving of visitors during the wintertime. We somewhat got their attention and my niece seemed fascinated by them. She also enjoyed the free roaming birds in the Rainforest exhibit.
 
I have noticed that the Jaguar at Chester like to keep a very close eye on small children and babys. Have noticed them a few times watching them as they have been closeby to their enclosures.
 
I'm an advocate for egg and spoon races across the lion enclosure for small, noisy children, but I have noticed that the young gorillas and a young mandrill at Paignton pay particular attention to human infants. Maybe they recognise something there.
 
Thank you for all the replies, interesting reading. I suppose I was expecting a reaction from primates because of the similarities in the babies :p but not sure about the cats reaction I still think they are thinking 'snack' :D

I have never thought of it as possible enrichment for the animals, so I will use this excuse to kidnap Noah as much as possible to take to the zoo!

Looking back through my baby books both my children had their first zoo trips at 4 months (probably due to weather) so may wait a few weeks yet!

Both mine grew up visiting Rajang, my son always called him 'his mate' and has been lovely looking back over how much things have changed since the 80's! Not all for the good! ie more playgrounds, bigger shop, more junk food but there is not many other places you can feed an elephant or giraffe for free!!

Pertinax I cannot wait for Noah to have Colchester zoo parties, I think I will want one more than him (I have enquired on numerous occasions and they won't let me have one!) of course complete with a fake rock cake :D
 
Blackduiker

While visiting the L.A. Zoo over the last several decades, the biggest reactions I've ever seen the animals have towards children, was how both current adult male Orangutans will sit at the glass viewing area, face-to-face, with small children for the longest. Makes for great photo ops. But at the other end of the spectrum, I can remember some 30 years ago, when the zoo exhibited a pair of Cougars in the North American section, the reaction the huge male always had when small children passed by. On one particular occasion, when a mom rolled her small toddler by sitting in a stroller, the male pounced forward, as if in attack mold, and fixated on this child in quite a frightening manner. This particular male by the way, was probably the largest Cougar I've ever seen in captivity to this very day. I would guess his weight at having been well over 200 pounds! And I'm not talking over weight, zoo-fed either. We're talking huge. Quite extreme for this particular species, but not unheard of.
 
Here in Calgary "Pebbles" the african rock python, occasionally stalks children as they walk by the enclosure. I have also sen the spired monkeys and gibbons interacting with visitors, be it just coming over for a look at a kid, or following and having some genuine interaction.
 
Fantastic picture!

I am not sure whats more worrying! The child is not reacting at all lol or maybe she ran off screaming after :eek:
 
karenZOO said:
Fantastic picture!

I am not sure whats more worrying! The child is not reacting at all lol or maybe she ran off screaming after :eek:
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No, the child had great fun and kept going back to the glass every time her older sister tried to pull her away. Her older sister, on the other hand, who I estimate was around five years old, was terrified.
 
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