Russell Kirkpatrick's Journal
Posted At : 3:26 PM
| Posted By : Russell
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Russell Rants
Mood: Bemused
Now reading: Gods of Amyrantha
Dorinda and I spent a fascinating afternoon at the local zoo. It's not much by world standards – the cheetahs were on loan to Auckland, the giraffes were kept inside because the ground was too wet – but it was great fun anyway.
I really enjoyed the Sumatran Tiger (part of a breeding programme) and the excellent open aviary featuring native NZ birds. But there was one species I kept returning to again and again. Not graceful, or strong, or exotic, or especially intelligent, I still found myself fascinated by its behaviour.
I'm talking about Homo Sapiens, of course.
People are the weirdest things. Witness the man behaving like a chimpanzee (or his imagined caricature of one) while trying to attract its attention. Look at the two women walking into the clearly labeled tiger viewing spot, chatting loudly to each other about the riveting exploits of an unnamed third woman, completely failing to notice the other twenty people transfixed with this tiger about ten feet away. After about ten minutes one says 'Oooh! There's a tiger!' I'm not sure what they were expecting. Then the hordes of young people wandering around the zoo with their iPods on, and other hordes shouting to each other in enclosures marked with signs asking for silence because the animals slept during the day. And others feeding their fingers to the macaws and cockatoos. 'Ow! The bird bit me!' I refrained from pointing out the sign on the side of the cage. I didn't refrain from sniggering silently though.
These are people who can do clever things like tie their own shoelaces and steer cars through peak hour traffic. Is there a crowd stupidity effect operating here? Or (as I suspect) do people simply think that if they pay at the door they have the right to do whatever they want?
You were observing special zoo behaviour: it takes years to learn.
Posted By
Gillian / Posted At 8/19/07 5:14 PM
you are far nicer than I. I'd have pointed and laughed, Granny would have stated her thoughts about them continuing to add to the gene pool.
Posted By Sharyn / Posted At 8/19/07 7:44 PM
I went through a phase of painting animals, which involved lots of trips to zoos and wildlife sanctuaries here an os. I think the worst behavior was a couple of teachers at the Melbourne zoo. Boys were running around the butterfly encounter catching butterflies in their school hats. What appalled me wasn't that they were doing that. Young boys and obnoxious behavior is hardly unusual. What appalled me was the teachers leaning against the railing, watching and doing absolutely nothing about it.
My no.1 piece of advice for timing zoo visits: go during weekends or school holidays. Seriously. Because during school term you get a lower ratio of sensible adults per obnoxious child.
Posted By trudi / Posted At 8/20/07 9:04 AM
Funniest thing I have seen at the local zoo was when a lady was standing outside the monkeys cage eating some kind of chocolate bar. A small primate came over, put his paw?, hand? through the bars and turned up the sign that said "do not feed the monkeys, they are on a special diet" then held his other paw out to the lady with the chocolate. How clever is that!!
Posted By Linda / Posted At 8/20/07 3:52 PM
You painted the animals, Trudi? Is that why the zebras have stripes?
Posted By russell / Posted At 8/20/07 4:59 PM
Why paint stripes on zebras when there are giant cats who need spots?
Posted By
Gillian / Posted At 8/20/07 5:24 PM
The butterflies were hardest. All that fluttering.
Posted By trudi / Posted At 8/22/07 7:59 AM
But the effort was worth it... they is soooo pwetty!!!
Posted By Jo / Posted At 8/22/07 8:31 AM
When are you going to paint the moths, trudi? No one ever paints the moths.
Posted By russell / Posted At 8/22/07 5:08 PM
She did. She sacrificed three months of precious writing time to paint those moths. The trouble is she painted them very subtly in dusk colours and they refuse to come into the light and be seen.
Posted By
Gillian / Posted At 8/22/07 8:20 PM
You know, Gillian, that makes sense in a spooky kind of way. You solve yet another of life's mysteries.
Posted By russell / Posted At 8/23/07 5:36 AM
