So this a thread where you can post any funny/crazy things that have happened when you have been visiting the zoo. These stories can be things like getting attacked by an animal through the glass, animals doing daft things, getting poo flung at you (it happens!), getting scared, tripping over, getting lost, etc. I'll start by sharing a story that happened quite a while back when we were visiting Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark. We were staying with my Grandma who lives there, and we decided one day to visit the zoo. My grandma stayed behind but gave us a mobile phone in case she wanted to get hold of us. Now, what my Grandma didn't tell us was that the ring-tone for the phone was bird song. So anyway, we were in the Tropical House, in a large hall that was filled with free-flying birds of many different kinds. At this point, my Grandma wanted to get hold of us so she started ringing us. But with us being in a rainforest room, and the ring-tone being bird-song, we failed to recognise it. Apparently she had tried to contact us quite a few times but we didn't realise that she was phoning us because of the ring-tone. Anyway, we were in the tropical house for quite a while as I am a big fan of tropical houses. A good while after, we made a random phone check and we found that there was eleven missed calls on the phone! When we finally answered, my grandma was not impressed at all. So that is one fun zoo story, and I will now leave the thread open for anyone to share any funny zoo stories that they have had. Feel free to share as many as you like!
San Antonio Zoo, someone dropped a child's shoe in the exhibit and the baby tigers were having so much fun with it. They would throw it and drop it and run around with it. The zookeepers tried to get them to put it down and come inside so they could take it, but to no avail, they were having too much fun to listen. It ended up drawing a big crowd, I got a lot of pictures. Also SAZ, I was in the aviary where you feed the lorikeets, birds that drink nectar. A girl there was wearing a fake flower in her hair. A bird flew onto her head and pulled out the stamen, got mad when it realized it was fake, and threw it on the ground.
I had a similar experience to this which was also at Copenhagen Zoo (on a different day though). A baby dropped a dummy (or pacifier if you are American) into the baboon enclosure and a young baboon grabbed it and actually started sucking it the way a baby does!
Funniest thing I ever saw in a zoo took place at Racine Zoo, on the shore of Lake Michigan. The Director was showing us (a small group of Brit zoo nerds) around the collection. When we came to the giraffes, a young male was obviously...er...full of the joys of spring. The ejaculate flew straight onto the Director's face Laugh? I nearly cr*pped myself...
That reminds me of a time at Brookfield Zoo many years ago with our two children and my brother's family of four kids. Upon coming up to the Australia outdoor exhibit, the kangaroos got into a mating frenzy with the males so excited they did not care what sex they hopped on, with them frequently getting three deep. That was fun trying to explain to the kids,while we were dying with laughter.
There's been many things I've had gorillas jump at me on the glass through hay at me I've seen turtles um, "mating" but the funniest thing was I was at my zoo checking out the gorillas, and let's say I learned that gorillas can entertain themselves
Another fun story I remember was when we were in a tropical house at South Lakes and for some reason they had a yellow anaconda free-roaming around a pond. Some people passing us by saw the anaconda and was like "woah there's a flipping big snake loose!" Now also near the pond was a small statue of a crocodile (a rather unrealistic-looking one if you ask me) and the people saw it and thought it was real and started screaming, panicking and running out of the tropical house!
In Omaha I had a juvenile orangutan stick its hands through the netting in the enclosure and snapped its fingers at me while gesturing for me to come closer. I emptied my pockets to show that all I had were my keys. When I put them away the orangutan climbed up the tree and turned its back to me while pouting.
I was in Blijdorp Zoo when a flying fox got onto a pushchair. A baby saw the bat and the pushchair toppled over. And down would come. "And down came the baby, pushchair and bat".
I was about 8 years old and on a visit to Twycross, walking through the old gibbon house when a Lar gibbon took offence at my (bright blue) bag of crisps. It went completely bat sh*t crazy and started hurling itself at the glass so obviously I ran like hell. The gibbon decided to see where I'd gone and started going mental and attacking the mesh so I casually ran to a far flung part of the zoo... I then went back towards the end of the day, now crispless, and it went crazy again. For several years afterwards I never went all the way down the corridor just in case it remembered me! Also got charged by a black rhino at a Chester walk & talk but so did several others so I didn't feel quite so bad. And to top it off I saw one half of Hevden be used as a toilet by a baby skink at BNC!
Tell it to keep it, it was an experience worth paying for. You can give him the bill for my dry cleaning though...
At my last visit to the Denver Zoo, I was passing the Somali wild ass exhibit, and overheard a man explain to a kid that they were "Somali wild bottoms," apparently not even bothering to explain that "ass" in this context refers to an animal and not to someone's buttocks.
Franklin Park Zoo: I was in the "baby room" (which is, as you could guess, just a room full of baby animals) and there was a litter of warthog piglets. I sat on the floor and start petting them and they apparently mistook the folds on my shirt for teats as they began to attempt to suckle. Needless to say they got no milk form me. On a different trip, the baby room had a baby binturong in it. I sat down on a bench and the binturong climb up my leg and laid on my lap. I assumed it wanted to be pet but every time I put my hand near it nipped at me. It got a couple good bites but luckily didn't break the skin. (This one isn't funny I suppose but I just like bragging that I'm probably the only Zoochatter that has been bit by a binturong). Sacramento Zoo: A chimp put his hand under his butt, pooped, and proceeded to eat the poop. The disgusted reactions from the crowd (particularly my mom's) were quite humorous. San Diego Zoo: Mind you I was younger when this happened. We were on a behind-the-scenes tour and were petting the Indian rhinos. Suddenly I noticed this long, pink tube hanging between the hind legs of one of the animals. Unsure of what it was I asked a nearby keeper (who is female). She stuttered for a second then simply said, "Well he's a boy." I realized what she meant and then me, being the immature person I was (and still am) started cracking up. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom: I walked up to the bottlenose dolphin tank and noticed there were more dolphins in it than usual. I also noticed that one of the dolphins was noticeably larger than the rest. I soon found out what was going on: it was "sexy time" . It was quite entertaining a) witnessing dolphin sex for the first time and b) watching families walk up to the glass and then watching as the horrified parents tried to drag away their kids before they started asking to many questions.
At Minnesota Zoo, I saw a wild turkey fly into one of the exhibits. I can't remember what that exhibit held at the time (either Mexican Gray Wolves or Dholes) but needless to say the turkey didn't last long.
Also, when I went to the Reid Park Zoo, the event garden was having some sort of pool party activity day or something, and one little girl who was probably under age 5 was just running around completely naked. I'm not joking.
I was in the petting zoo at Nashville Zoo because that's where the clouded leopard cubs were. They were in an enclosure but the area I was standing in to view them had free roaming goats. A family was there and a goat took the zoo map from a 3 or 4 year old boy and promptly ate it. The boy held his hand below the goat's mouth and said "give it back."
Not zoo related but (kind of) similar: A few years ago I was walking around a local park. I looked up and saw a Red-Tailed Hawk perched in a tree. A few minutes later, a woman saw the hawk. She had her hands up in the air, running around, screaming: "Run! Hide your children! There's a hawk! It's gonna eat us all"! The hawk didn't look interested in eating anyone, but it did look mildly entertained.
