Accessing a ‘hard to reach’ audience: the unbelievable things visitors say at zoos
Anyone who has worked in a zoo has overheard members of the public pronounce with confidence all kinds of bizarre and often very funny misunderstandings on the living world.
For instance there was the woman at Chester who told her children that bats nest under the water (..she had read a reference to the breeding pool for the species doing well). And there was a well dressed man who insisted that elephants ate meat; another referred to the sealions as ‘big fish’
This show how big a hill there is to climb, but also that it needs to be climbed and that the zoo audience is an especially apt target. Awarness programmes targeted on the zoo visitor are certainly not a case of ‘preaching to the converted’
Has anyone out there got any other such examples..?
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Welsh Mountain Zoo (mid 80′s)
Daughter: Mummy, why had that flamingo only got one leg.
Mother: They cut it off so the birds can’t fly away.
I used to volunteer at an aquarium. Often, dads would tell their kids “hey, look at the lions!” (They were Sumatran Tigers.)
Once, a lady asked me about the large “round fish” that seemed to be in distress — it was a ray near the surface, splashing visitors for fun.
As Education Officer at theWelsh Mountain Zoo I have been asked on more than one occassion by children who have come into the Education Centre if the chinchilla was an elephant. I suppose they are both grey animals with big ears and something curly at one end but can only conclude that seeing an animal on TV is no substitute for seeing the real thing.
Arnheim, NL, Burger’s Zoo:
A tourist claimed that an “ESB”(=European Studbook) ran into him in the rainforest exhibit. The “ESB” turned out to be a Crowned Pigeon…
Straubing, Germany:
An animal right activist tried to sue the little local zoo for inadequate treatment of the alleged “skin disease” of a camel. The “skin disease” turned out to be normal seasonal coat-shedding.
While at Hamilton zoo in a single day I heard a young boy ask his mother, “What’s this”, to which his Mother replied, “A crocodile”…
It was a blue tongued skink…
A small Australian lizard like reptile about 30 cm long with you guessed it a blue tongue…
About 10 minutes later I heard a girl in her early teens describe a White Rhino as a large horse…
And finally a man in his late 40′s or early 50′s was overheard to say to his friend, “They don’t bite if you pat them like the sign says, they don’t jump neither..!” He had just patted a wild pig…