Please Don't Tease the Animals

Photograph taken by the author.

Please, Don't Tease the Animals!

I must have said it a dozen times. Or maybe a hundred times.

 “Please, don’t tease the gorillas – they might throw something at you and you won’t like what they throw!”

“Please, don’t feed the squirrel monkeys – they bite!”

“Please, don’t try to touch the coati – he has sharp teeth!”

“Please, don’t climb on the wall, I wouldn’t want you to fall into the animal enclosure.”

Please, don’t howl at the siamangs, they don’t like it. It stresses them out and you don’t know what you might be saying back to them!”

But people just kept on doing it. They kept on teasing the tiger, hooting at the siamangs, throwing food to the squirrel monkeys, coati and meerkats, and climbing on the wall around the giant tortoise exhibit. They kept on banging on the windows of the Animal Care Center, kept on whistling at the monkeys to get their attention take a photo, and kept on making faces at the orangutans, gorillas and chimps.

Well, one day, the animals got their revenge. 

The siamangs howled and sang so loudly that everyone went deaf. The gorillas threw poop at a particularly obnoxious man, and hit another with one of the rotten apples he had tossed into the gorilla enclosure. A female orangutan spit water (and orangutan spit) full in the face of a woman who was making kissing noises at the orangutan’s new baby. A little boy who had been walking along the top of the wall around the giant tortoise exhibit fell in and the turtles sat on him until he yelled “Uncle”. The squirrel monkeys bit the fingers off of a man who was feeding them grapes, and the coati ate someone’s cell phone after it had been shoved into the little animal’s face. The meerkats finally got to eat the popcorn they had been teased with after a girl who was leaning over the railing fell into the enclosure. For good measure, the meerkats ate the little girl’s nose, as well. The best was when the tiny baby gibbon peed right on someone’s head!

It was a great day at the zoo!

An Orangutan in Love

One day at the zoo, as I chanced to be observing the orangutans, I noticed one of the females sitting on the ledge of the glassed-in observation area, apparently just taking in the afternoon sun. Along came one of the male orangutans. As he slowly came up behind the female, he began to stretch out his long, long arms as though he were working out the kinks in his shoulders. I swear to you, dear reader, that he stretched out his arms and began to put one around the female's shoulders, appearing like the stereotypical young male human in many a classic teen film, making the moves on his date in a darkened movie theater (without the fake yawn, however). Just as the male orangutan was about to put his arm around the female's shoulder, she turned around and slapped him in the face! She then quickly climbed up onto the roof of the observation deck and scurried away into a far corner. The male, meanwhile, put a huge hand to his injured cheek and sat pouting, looking totally dejected and sorry for himself, for the next half hour, or so. Eventually, he moved off to the opposite side of the enclosure. 

From that day on, whenever the male orangutan has been in the same section of the orangutan exhibit as this particular female, he has a tried to engage her attention however he can. Most of the time, she moves away from him or completely avoids him, but has been seen cuddling with him from time to time. Whenever he is not allowed into the same section where she is, he has displayed a habit of sitting way up high in the exhibit and watching her all day long. It is one of the worst cases of unrequited love I have ever seen, and just goes to show that orangutans are not all that different from humans, in my opinion.

The attached photograph is courtesy of the L.A. Zoo website and is not a photo of either of the orangutans featured in this story.

Rosie's Raspberry

One, hot July day, while I was at the zoo, I came upon a man who appeared to be very upset and anxious. He told me his wife had dropped her cell phone into the orangutan enclosure and asked me if I could call someone to get it back. I immediately got out my cell phone and call the security office. I told the officer who answered that I was standing just outside the front entrance to the orangutan exhibit and that I had a man there who needed help retrieving his wife's cell phone. The officer told me he would be calling the orangutan keepers to let them know what had happened and where to find the dropped cell phone. 

We waited a few minutes and up drove Officer Tom in his little golf cart. Since it was the middle of Summer, he was dressed in his navy blue uniform, complete with tight shorts and utility belt. Officer Tom asked where the cell phone was located and I showed him the object lying just below the bridge that runs alongside of the enclosure. The phone was not actually inside of the enclosure, but lay just outside of the mesh fence down in a small gully. It was clearly visible near one of the pylons of the bridge. We all waited for the keeper to appear. Minutes went by. Officer Tom called in to find out what was going on -- apparently the keeper was at the other end of the enclosure looking for the phone. Officer Tom obtained permission to climb over the fence, himself, and down into the gully to retrieve the phone. He easily hopped over the fence and made his way down towards the bridge pylon where the phone lay. Just as he was bending over to pick up the cell phone, Rosie, one of the female orangutans came up behind him, stuck out her tongue, took a deep breath, and aimed a wet raspberry at the officer's behind. 

" Pbluthuuuuuu!!!"

Officer Tom jumped, let out a yell and hopped, no dived back over the fence as quickly as he could. Then, he handed the cell phone to the startled man, got back into his little golf cart with as much dignity as he could and drove away.

I could not help laughing, and Rosie was laughing, too.

Image borrowed from unravelcat.wordpress.com