“Those free-roaming peacocks are really stupid and sometimes go in the lions exhibit and get torn up.” – reddit

“When you’re cleaning underneath the perches, parrots will wait for you to look up before taking a sh*t. They have good aim. That’s how you get sh*t in the mouth. Don’t look up.” – reddit

“The zebras are ruthless and will tear apart any unfortunate kangaroo that dares break into an enclosure. They love the thrill of the chase… and the subsequent kill when they get bored.” – reddit

“Our lions will urinate on guests if they get too close, which is always funny to see. Not so funny to smell.” – reddit

“The dolphin trainers are stuck up. They are like the jocks in high school. They usually try to stay in shape because wetsuits aren’t flattering. They perform daily and people love them, so they have an ego.” – reddit

“One of our most popular exhibits was this incubator with baby chicks. We were told to tell visitors that the older baby chicks would be sent to schools as classroom pets or to the petting zoo. In reality, we did send the chicks to the zoo… as live animal feed for the snakes and other carnivores.” – reddit

“Dead zoo animals are sometimes fed to carnivores.” – reddit

“If you work with the animals, there’s a good chance you’ll not be able to have any kind of social life, between the long hours/weekends and the stench. I’ve been kicked out of stores after work because I apparently stunk way worse than I thought I did – even after scrubbing off!” – reddit

“Lions know fully well that they can’t get through the glass. They do that just to get attention.” – reddit

“Because their external genitalia look similar, many spotted hyena populations in captivity are facing extinction due to groups being made of the same sex.” – reddit

“When I worked on the grounds crew at a zoo, there was a camel who thought it was hysterical to nudge people into the electric fence. When we would trim the moat around his enclosure, he liked to reach his neck out and hook you just hard enough to stumble and get yourself shocked.” – reddit

“We closed the baboon exhibit because a baboon had a still birth and the “troupe” was grieving. In reality they were throwing parts of the infant corpse around and there was nothing we could do about it.” – reddit

“I worked with wild macaques for awhile, and when a baby died a mother would sometimes carry it around for days. Some females would also steal live babies and carry them around like they were their own. Except they couldn’t nurse them, so they’d slowly starve to death. A few even stole baby racoons, and that didn’t go well either.” – reddit

” I was alone in the monkey house one day, chopping away, when I got that feeling that I was being watched. We had a pair of white cheeked gibbons (found in SE Asia), and I looked up to find the female hanging from her branches, with her legs spread in what looked like a cheerleader’s split and the male behind her as they mated. He was busy with the task at hand, but she was staring at me intently (probably because I was making her breakfast). She just kept staring without blinking. She didn’t even seem to notice when her boyfriend was finished, she just kept staring. I went back to my chopping, and she eventually lost interest.” – reddit

“I worked as an elephant handler at a drive through park where most of the animals more or less roam free. The elephant barn was in the middle of the park. So, one day we are driving from the park to the main visitor area to grab lunch at the cafe. On our way, something spooked a whole heard of nilgai (the largest Asian antelope) one of the nilgai tries to leap a perimeter fence that leads right into a cheetah enclosure. This particular cheetah had been raised with a dog. The nilgai tore part of the fence down when he went in. Staff response was swift but not quick enough. The dog got the animal by the back knees and started tearing at it like when you play tug of war with your dog. The cheetah, having been raised in captivity, got it by the neck but had no idea what to do. The big cat department managed to get the cheetah and dog both out of the enclosure and into another while the main Veterinarian had to put the nilgai down because his injuries were too bad. It was pretty sad.” – reddit

“I was a keeper and tour guide at a small zoo in Oklahoma and one day when I was cleaning up the barnyard I looked up and out towards the monkey enclosures and thought…”huh, that looks like a monkey walking along that fence….” and almost immediately realized who it was and what was going on. Got on the radio and alerted the entire place to the fact that one of our more dangerous capuchins was out and wondering the facility.

Moses, as the story goes, was rescued from a travelling circus after he had witnessed his owner being bludgeoned to death and we had to be very, very careful around him. He was violent and aggressive and it was instant chaos.

We escorted all the guests off property and after several hours of him approaching us and looking in the pockets of petrified zookeepers for treats, he was finally captured and put back into his enclosure. It only took a couple of valium in a wine cooler to make it happen, but that was by far one of the more frightening experiences I had there.” – reddit

“Used to work at a zoo teaching summer camps. Many of the chimps were rescues from shows and weren’t very wild or shy, so would sit close to the edge of the enclosure near visitors. A couple teens were tossing rocks at them, and one chimp scooped one up that landed close by and just whipped it back. Guess what animal has better aim and can throw a hell of a lot harder than a 14 year old? Yep. Thankfully this was in the early 90s before people sued for everything.” – reddit

“I once volunteered alongside zookeepers at one of the best rated zoos in the U.S. My favorite part was that there was a kangaroo escape plan hanging up behind part of the children’s zoo. There was a HUGE net and some other supplies along with detailed instructions. Apparently the kangaroos had escaped at one point and getting them back was complete hell.” – reddit

“I used to work in a small zoo that had free-roaming peafowl, and they, not being the brightest of birds, occasionally got into trouble. The zoo’s capuchin monkeys liked to lure them towards their enclosure by dropping food just outside the wiring so they could grab them and yank their feathers out. The birds never seemed to learn their lesson because they would keep falling for it.” – reddit

“Once when I went to check on a small rodent enclosure, instead of the mouse that was supposed to live in there, I found a small rat snake coiled up in the middle of the enclosure. The AC unit in the building the enclosure was in had stopped working so we had had to leave the doors open until it could be repaired, so the snake got in from outside and apparently had slipped into the enclosure through a small gap in the top. We got the snake out of the enclosure and we noticed it had a bulge in its stomach as if it had recently eaten, and we couldn’t find any trace of the mouse, so it was pretty obvious what the poor mouse’s fate was.” – reddit

“Our pufferfish got wedged in a tiny hole and required divers to go in to the big tank and save him. Silly, clumsy animal, seriously clumsy. Cute, but graceless.” – reddit

“One baboon running around frantically going from baboon to baboon presenting his butt to show other baboons the piece of poop stuck in his butt.” – reddit

“A giant walrus swimming around catching and swallowing a giant tuna head. Then throwing it up so he could repeat. For about an hour and a half.” – reddit

“A giraffe got out of its enclosure and made its way over to a concessions and picnic area. We arrived to help direct it back into its enclosure, and people were trying to stand next to it to get photos and pet it. The giraffe was visibly showing signs of nervousness and we had to yell at visitors to get away because if the animal kicked out of fear, it could have easily killed them.” – reddit

“My manager had a close relationship with one of the bears and put a scoop of food down right in front of him. The bear opened his mouth and took my bosses arm right between his teeth and slowly bit down. Boss swears it was like a thank you for the food. They were making eye contact the whole time. When the pressure got too much, boss poked the bear right between the eyes and he let him go.” – reddit

“We had multiple bird feeders around, which were strung on wires between the trees so avoid the bears eating the bird seed, so you had to use a crank to lower the feeder to refill it. One of the yearling bears watched us use the crank to lower the feeder and waited until we were done, then wondered over and put his paws up on the crank, clearly trying to operate it. Luckily he couldn’t find the release switch. But proves they are crazy smart animals.” – reddit

“Worked grounds at the Oakland zoo :) besides crazy human stuff, the coolest crazy thing was coming in at 5ish am and seeing this certain siamang (big ass gibbon I think) at the top of the tree singing and pointing like he was greeting the sun. I saw him do this several times!” – reddit

“Not me, my wife. I’m always surprised by the resilience of the animals. They had a silverback rip open a females face during an introduction. Like pried her jaw open so her cheeks were ripped open and her jaw was just hanging on. But they sowed her up and she just fucking healed and is fine.” – reddit

“Back in my zookeeping days, I had a big class of 4-6 year olds who I was giving a tour of the rhino exhibit to when our big male backed up to the fence and marked them all with nasty pheromonous urine. They thought it was hilarious!” – reddit

“I was a zookeeper at the Banham Zoo and Monkey sanctuary in Norfolk, England. This one day I’m doing my routine a giving a pair of chimpanzees their tea. Which entails me with a bucket of tea plus milk like the British do and plus a B12 vitamin addition. I fill smug and hand it to them through the bars…they drink the tea hand it back and I refill and so on so forth. These chimps were older and larger and far to dangerous to be in the cage with them. So hereI am handing them mugs of tea and a band of tourists gather around to watch the “show”… well damn if the one Chimp (Lily) instead of taking the tea, grabbed my wrist and pulled my entire arm into the cage until my body was up against the bars then munch down on my hand like it was a carrot…fuk…I started screaming “Mother Fucka!! Mother Fuka!..Son off a Bitch!!” I saw a young girl gasp as she grabbed poppas hand… and the crowd just collectively leaned back from the chimp assault upon myself…That chimpanzee finally let me lose and that was that …never gave em tea again.. Have a nice scar on my hand since.” – reddit

“The South America enclosure had sloths, golden lion tamarins, capybaras and a few other animals all living together peacefully. One day, a golden lion tamarin decided to annoy one of the sloths, and kept harassing the sloth. The sloth tolerated it for a small while, then turned around and bit the tamarin’s face. There was blood on the sloth and the tamarin, and it was grisly. This all happened in front of guests.

The keepers had to go in immediately and retrieve both of them. They were checked for injuries. The golden lion tamarin had an eye hanging from its socket. He could no longer be on display. I don’t know what ended up happening to him. The sloth was cleaned up and put back.” – reddit

“There was a huge storm one night and the following day the zoo was closed for cleanup and repairs. I was walking past the exhibit of a small crocodile with my supervisor and we noticed something floating in the water. Somehow a groundhog had gotten over the 7 feet high plexiglass walls of the enclosure during the night and the croc drowned the poor sucker and bit off 2 of its legs.” – reddit

“The most scary to me were the giraffes. Back then you went into the enclosure with them and they’d sometimes swing their heads around and try to hit you just to be pricks. You had to be careful.” – reddit

“The job would actually be fantastic if they didn’t let people into the zoo.” – reddit

“Be careful walking by the open-air monkey enclosures, because poop isn’t the only thing they’ll fling at you. It’s like that scene from the silence of the lambs, when Clarence is going to see Hannibal Lecter… You know the scene I mean. Only much, much worse.” – reddit

“Most of zookeeping is just picking up poop and making/delivering food.” – reddit

“The poor penguin keepers can never quite get rid of the miasma of dead fish that envelopes them. As for me, the stinkiest job I ever had to do was cleaning out the duck ponds. Managed to empty a whole train carriage that evening, even though I had changed and my work clothes were double-bagged.” – reddit

“Monkeys will, in fact, try to have sex with a female human if there is an opportunity to. The more you know.” – reddit

“Rhinos may look super intimidating, and they can hurt you, but really they just act like big dogs. They love being scratched and will eat all the fruit out of your hand.” – reddit