Is there anything you regret doing in a zoo when you were young? I, for instance, kept wiggling the goats' horns at African Lion Safari's Pets Corner in hopes to try and break it off.
I used to pet (and sometimes feed) animals where it was not allowed but I as a kid still managed to climb over bushes/walls or sneak thin hand through fences etc. Babirusas, zebras, snow leopards, giraffes, rhinos and many more.
Nothing. I visit zoos now practically the same way I did back then. The main difference is that I the pictures I take now are much better.
Ooo that would've been Indian pangolins too, right!? A species hardly anyone on zoochat has likely seen!
I remember being too scared to ride an elephant at the Louisville Zoo as a child. Nowadays I don't think elephant rides are even a thing in U.S. zoos.
Speaking of elephant rides, I once rode one of the elderly cows at African Lion Safari, either Maggie or Jenny. Given how little I think of elephant rides now, I regret wanting to ride one.
When I was a little kid at the Phoenix Zoo, I yelled about the mandrill's brightly-colored butt. Kinda regret being that one obnoxious kid who had to remark on the monkey's butt.
Also, the impeding of natural behavior and choice for the animal that comes with these rides, potential impacts on welfare, the promotion of an inappropriate human use of an animal and the close interaction of visitors with a dangerous (more or less) wild animal could be arguments against elephant (and possibly other animal) rides. Participating in an elephant as well as a camel ride back when I was in elementary school at a pretty nasty little Belgian family park is certainly one of my regrets. Other things I regret doing as a child, an adolescent or a young adult would be stepping over some barriers to take photos (I never did so with truly dangerous animals though), using a flash at times when taking photos, petting animals such as a rhinoceros when given the opportunity (the animal being within reach) and not paying enough attention or having enough respect for certain groups of animals or animal houses (in my case reptiles, invertebrates and great apes mostly).
Remember, a camel in a zoo is very much a domestic animal, apart from the odd wild Bactrian in Chinese collections. It's like riding a horse.
