Zoos obviously need visitors - they bring in vital funds to pay the bills and to care for the animals - but dealing with them can be stressful for us! Take zoo warning signs for instance. They're there for a reason, and yet so many zoo visitors think it's okay to ignore them. You expect it from children, but often it's the adults who are putting their children over the safety barriers to 'get a better look' or letting the children feed all kinds of things to the animals. When we politely ask them to stop, nine out of ten reply with, "It was only a bit of banana" or "It was only a scrap of bread."
What people don't understand, and what we have to then explain, is that zoo animals are on strictly controlled diets. If you feed 'a bit of banana' to a leaf-eating monkey, for instance, you can kill it. No, not all monkeys eat bananas, folks. Also, many have medical conditions (like diabetes) that restrict their diet further. And, even if they can eat what you hand over, if everyone gives 'just a bit' then these animals will get morbidly obese very quickly.
The other thing that always astounds me is the complete lack of education, and I'm not just talking about kids. Often we overhear adults telling their kids the most ridiculous things, which, though sometimes very funny, leave me feeling exasperated. For example, and believe me this is true:
Child: "Dad, why do the penguins have those metal things on their wings?"
Dad: "To stop them flying away."
*facepalm*
Worse, often they're standing right next to a sign which gives them the correct answers but so many people don't bother to read them. It's unbelievably frustrating for us. Please, if you want to know about the animals (and you don't want to read the signs!) just ask us. We like nothing more than telling you all about our animals. It's our passion.
Then there are those members of the public who don't agree with zoos at all. The protesters. They think it's wrong to keep animals in cages, and that we're only there to make money, which simply isn't true. The primary goals of any good zoo is conservation and education. Our zoo actually makes a loss every year, but keeps going because it's making a difference. It has very successful breeding programs for endangered species, actively reintroduces species back into the wild, and has conservation and rehabilitation reserves around the world, both to smooth the process of reintroducing captive-bred animals and to take in rescued wild ones.
Species are becoming extinct 1000 times faster now than they did before humans were around. Without zoos many more species would be extinct by now. The future is in our hands, and it's our duty to repair some of the damage the human race has inflicted upon our world. I just hope it's not too late.
