I am a zookeeper and am making my way from one enclosure to another. As I walk past the elephants, I see an angry-looking mother dragging her poor daughter behind her. She sees me, realizes I work here, and makes a beeline for me.

Mother: “You! How dare you?!”

Me: “How can I help you, ma’am?”

Mother: “Do you abuse your animals?!”

Me: “Not at all, ma’am! We here at [Zoo] are proud of the quality of care we provide all of our animals!”

Mother: “Then why do you let the elephants do that in front of the children?!”

She points furiously while blocking the view of her scared-looking daughter using her coat. I can see straight away what she’s referring to. One of our elephants is the alpha male of his family, and this afternoon he is particularly… aroused.

Me: “Well, ma’am. That’s nature. Nothing we can do about that.”

Mother: “It’s obscene! How can you let him parade… that… in front of children?!”

Me: “Ma’am, this may be a zoo but these are still wild animals, and they will do what animals do. If you’re not ready to have that discussion with your child then you definitely shouldn’t take her to see the Bonobos!”

Bonobos are a type of ape who… well… do it a lot!

Mother: “It should be your responsibility to ensure the zoo is a family-friendly place to take my child! I demand to speak to your manager!”

Yes, she went there. The manager!

Me: “Ma’am, the manager of this zoo has no more control over the elephant and his member than I do. What did you expect him to be able to do?!”

Mother: “Then your elephant is a pervert and needs to be locked away! You must have abused him to make him that way! I will be writing to the paper about this!”

And with that, she stormed off toward the exit, shielding her daughter from the dangers of nature the entire way. We never did see the massive exposé in the paper about how our zoo animals had healthy sex drives, but then again, we didn’t check the joke section.

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I work as a tour guide at a wildlife park. Today, I am showing a tour group of senior high school and college students from the US around our wildlife park. We arrive at one of the saltwater crocodiles, which are bigger and more dangerous than alligators. This one is five metres long and weighs nearly a metric tonne, and he is on the bank with only his tail in the water.

We are standing on a raised platform looking down at him. I finish my talk about crocodiles.

Me: “Does anyone have any questions?”

Tourist: “How do you make the crocodile do tricks?”

Me: *Pause* “I do not make him do tricks.”

Tourist: “But he’s just sitting there.”

Me: “Yes, crocodiles save their energy for when they need it. See how he’s watching us? He won’t move unless he decides it’s worth the effort.”

Tourist: “You should poke him.”

Me: “I’m not going to poke him.”

Tourist: “C’mon, he won’t move, I bet.”

Me: “He absolutely will move; he is very territorial. We do not enter his pen without a lot of precautions; he can attack very quickly.”

Tourist: “But he looks so lazy.”

Me: “Again, because he is saving his energy.”

Tourist: “I’m going to jump in there.”

The tourist goes to swing his foot up over the railing. Whether or not he’s joking doesn’t matter; I pull him back from the barrier.

Me: “Absolutely do not do that. You will die. And I will not be going in to save you.”

Tourist: “You won’t?”

Me: “No.”

He finally moved on after that.

Related:
Crocodile Denial

My daughter and I are at a zoo with her friend from swimming lessons and her friend’s mom. My daughter, despite being almost four and otherwise neurotypical, barely ever talks. She’s in speech therapy, but it’s rare to hear more than one- or two-word phrases from her. Also relevant to the story is that she is white and her friend is black.

After a fun day at the zoo, we start heading back to our cards. As we exit to the parking lot, my daughter suddenly starts pointing at her friend, exclaiming, “Black! Black!” over and over.

Confused and embarrassed, I assure her friend’s mom that we never say anything like, “Let’s go play with your black friend!” or point out the difference in skin color; it doesn’t matter to pre-schoolers, so why would we make a big deal out of it? Her friend’s mother assures me that she has no reason to believe our family is racist, although she’s as baffled as I am. Meanwhile, my daughter keeps pointing at her friend and yelling, “Black!” 

After what seems like forever, we get to our cars, parked next to each other, and start getting ready to go. My daughter points to her booster seat and then to her friend’s car. “Black!” Then she signs, “Please.”

The friend’s car is black. Ours isn’t.

She was asking, with her limited speech, if she could ride home with her friend in her car!

With lockdown slowly relaxing, I’m able to visit the zoo again, albeit with restrictions; for instance, you need to reserve a time slot. I take one later in the day and happen to be at the sea lions just after they are being fed.

A few years ago, a blue heron — and a flock of seagulls — learned the sea lions’ teatime, as well, and as a protected species, got the occasional fish — not so the seagulls. Through the years, it took up permanent residence in the zoo — still a free bird, though — and, as such, got used to people but keeps its distance.

I am admiring it from fairly close, a one-meter-wide hedge between us, when I overhear some French-speaking visitors exclaim that it is a “perroquet de mer” or, literally, a sea parrot.

I’m telling this to a few friends a few days later.

Friend: “What? Is that even a thing?”

Out of curiosity, I do a Google search and immediately recognize the bird but cannot think of the name in Dutch, nor in English.

Me: “Well, yes, it turns out that it is a thing. It is a… a… Well, it is a penguin that isn’t a penguin.”

My friends got what I meant and had a good chuckle about it. It took another search to find that a “perroquet de mer” is a puffin which, incidentally, in Dutch, also has the word for parrot in its name.

I work at a predator habitat center. These are questions for the facility tour leader from two very different guests.

[Guest #1] is a five-year-old girl.

Guest #1: “If I were to meet a gwizzley beah, what would be my best stwategy?”

Our tour leader experiences a renewed hope for humanity. [Guest #2] is a middle-aged woman.

Guest #2: “At what elevation do elk turn into buffalo?”

Our tour leader decided that she simply was not paid enough to have any desire to continue working.