Random Zookeepers Reveal Biggest Animal Jerks In Their Facilities (15 items)

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  (#1) The Psychotic Swans

  From MyosinV:

  "Swans are pure devil spawn.

  They want to kill anything that moves near them. Sweet harmless baby ducks born on the pond? Initiate murder instinct. Man who feeds me and cleans my awful poop everyday? Start up the murder protocol.

  Even the dumbest of invertebrates knew that we fed them and would be kinder. Swans see you bringing them food from across the park and are furious that 'YOU STOLE MY FOOD I NEVER HAD AND PUT IT IN THAT BUCKET YOU'RE BRINGING TOWARD ME AND I AM GOING TO BEAT THE HELL OUT OF THIS GROUNDHOG NEAR ME BECAUSE OF IT, AND THEN TRY TO MURDER YOU.'

  Swans are the worst."
• 

  (#2) The Self-Pleasuring Beluga

  From iw2dws:

  "Not quite the same thing, but I volunteered at an aquarium while in high school (I later worked at another aquarium, but that's besides the point).

  I used to talk at different exhibits. The worst was beluga whales, at least it was for me. It's the first stop and lots of people come and I was just too anxious to go on mic in front of that many people.

  One of our whales was a young male. He interacted with the guests the most, often pushing his melon against the glass and blowing out water. There are videos of him with a mariachi band and at weddings during ceremonies.

  So yeah, a young male whale. Young male whales are excitable, if you catch my drift. Some times he would get so excited, he would rub himself on the biggest piece of glass. He only seemed to do this on the busiest days or days we had lots of kids. Normally I would talk about other stuff and people just kind of pointed and laughed. Some people would ask what was happening to which I would reply, 'Oh, you know how young guys are.' People usually got it after that.

  One day, on a super busy day, the whale rubbed himself until climax. Whale cum for everyone to see. I was barely sixteen at the time, and I was mortified when kids ran up to ask me what the explosion was. Whale just swims away, the smug bastard."
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  (#3) The Goring Goat

  From Tophat1935:

  "We had a Cretin Goat that was hand reared, so it was put in the children's petting zoo. As it got older it turned into more and more of a jerk. This goat started bullying the kids by gently approaching them until they it was close enough to be pet. It would put its head against the kids them then try to push them over. But worse than that, is it really hated old ladies. It just straight up charged and rammed old ladies. After a few knock downs, it became apparent what a jerk it was.

  We moved the goat to an off exhibit 3/4 acre enclosure on a hillside. I was doing some work in the enclosure with a coworker of mine before we found out about this particular goat. She stayed at the bottom of the hill to check out the animals while I was doing work up top. I looked down and she was hiding in the barn waving at me. I thought it was weird but just kept on working. Then, this goat comes up and starts pushing into me. I thought it was just being aggressive with wanting to be pet.

  Nope.

  Little sh*t was sure footed on that hillside, planting it and trying to push me over. I slipped a few times but it was more an annoyance at that point. What changed was when this goat started dropping his head in front of my thighs and jerking it up backwards, seemingly trying to impale me with its horn. I repeatedly had to grab its horn with one hand, while carrying my equipment in the other. Then it would scamper off and come back with another head push and attempted stabbing every 10 feet a made it down the hillside.

  When I met with my coworker at the bottom, she told me it got aggressive and charged her. She was waving to try and warn me. After that we mentioned the goat to the keeper. He laughed and proceeded to tell us several stories about what a jerk this goat was.

  I'll always remember that goat."
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  (#4) The Spitting Orangutan

  From SeptimusLovesOctavia:

  "Ex-Zookeeper here. Orangutans are super smart, super strong, and super jerks. Well, some are. We had a female who, if you were standing in front of her indoor inclosure, would spit and hit you in the mouth every damn time. And grin. She grinned so big when it happened. Lesson learned."
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  (#5) The Razor-Clawed Wallaby

  From stabbycuddles:

  "A hand-raised wallaby named Wallace Montgomery. He was hand-raised (translation: f*cking psycho) and then given to us when he became a wee bit overwhelming for his previous caretaker.

  Feeding time? Prepare to be be gouged by his razor sharp nails, bit on your softest parts, and the bowl WILL be knocked out of your hands.

  Cleaning time? He will grab your rake and shovel, hit you with them, and kick you when you bend down to pick up your stuff.

  Trying to give him fresh straw to sleep on? Nope. He shredded the bag it came in. He kicked the fresh straw into the yard. He picked up the dirty pissy straw and rubbed it all over you.

  I love him immensely. Fun fact: if you pick him up mid-tantrum, he will lay his head on your shoulder and give you three solid minutes of snuggles before recommencing your attempted murder."
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  (#6) The Emu Wallaby War

  From a5121221a:

  "When I worked as a zookeeper intern, I think the biggest jerks were the emus. It was the summer of 2004 and the emus shared an exhibit with the wallabies. The exhibit wasn't high-security. It was essentially a fence made of dried bamboo stalks.

  Wallabies are super cute and while we didn't have an area where they are in the same space as visitors, some zoos do. Wallabies are not typically threatening in any way.

  The emus were big jerks. They constantly pecked at the wallabies and were generally a pain, but they weren't separated because they didn't cause actual injuries. The wallabies eventually got their revenge and freedom. One night, one of the emus ran into the fence and sort of gently-impaled itself. It wasn't badly injured, but it did fall down after the injury. What did the wallabies do? They kicked it in the head until it was dead.

  The wallabies and emus were separated the next day."
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  (#7) Baby Camel Chaos

  From Throwaway8658344:

  "I'm sure there are probably problem animals in the other areas of my zoo as well but the animal that is the biggest jerk that I have worked with takes the form of a baby camel. Now most people don't think about camels as dangerous animals usually but a quick google search will show you plenty of videos displaying just how strong and terrifying they can be. Fortunately that's not an issue for us, all of our camels are well trained and pretty well behaved so long as you don't leave anything sitting around them that you aren't prepared to have eaten by one of the giant lugs. Except for one.

  This baby camel was orphaned by her mother so she has been raised by us for the most part. Usually she is pretty sweet and fairly easy to get along with. But I have never seen an animal go through bigger mood swings than her. One moment she will be rubbing up next to you looking for attention, but the next moment you have your back turned she will be half reared up and ready to kick, and then after failing to murder you she will try to come back to you for more affection like none of it ever happened. She would use any reason as an excuse to try and attack one of us too. 'Oh that stick that has been in my enclosure for a week and I have never reacted to? Now that you are in my enclosure as well it's now clearly an attacker and I need to destroy everything in my immediate radius.'

  Now I know what you're thinking, it's just a baby right? What harm could she do? Well by six months she was already past 200 pounds and still growing, she'll easily pass 1000 pounds when she is fully grown. So trying to lead her outside in the morning when she was in a homicidal mood was a hassle to say the least, dodging kicks and trying to hold onto her lead while she did her best to murder you. I would easily say 90% of the injuries sustained on the job in our department was due to her.

  That being said, I still love the little antichrist and she has definitely started to calm down with age and take to her training a lot better but that couldn't have come fast enough for most of our shins and ankles."
• 

  (#8) Don't Cross The Cassowary

  From Bushtuckapenguin:

  "Cassowary. If anyone need to into their enclosure there had to be two others in riot gear. Nothing makes you sh*t yourself more than scrambling behind them and hear the karate kick off the gods smashing a shield behind you."
• 

  (#9) Aldabra Tortise Trouble

  From Charlie24601:

  "Aldabra tortoises. They have an outdoor pen, but obviously they are stuck in a smaller indoor enclosure during the colder months.

  They won't leave you the f*ck alone. I was watering the plants at one point, when two big males came up behind me and pinned me to the wall. I pinwheeled my arms and fell onto one's back... sort of got to ride him.

  Other times, the decide to sit RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DOOR. So you're stuck until you convince them to move. You certainly aren't going to move 500 pounds of turtle on your own.

  If you put a squeegee against the wall, the simply HAVE to knock it over and sit on it.

  Got the hose out? Yup. Gotta sit on it.

  Bringing out food? Sit right in the f*cking feed troughs."
• 

  (#10) Squirrel Monkeys Get Grabby

  From BoldlyGone1:

  "I work with squirrel monkeys, and I go in there with a little bowl of live mealworms for training purposes. One day one particular monkey was being fairly grabby, reaching for my hair and whatnot. I had closed up their cage and was getting ready to leave when I noticed I hadn't slid a hatch shut. I moved closer to the fence to do it and someone – I don't know who, but I'm bettting it was the grabby one – shot a hand out of the cage, reaching for the mealworms, and knocked the bowl out of my hands. I don't know if you know this, but individual mealworms are hard to pick up off the floor, especially when they're crawling away as fast as their little legs can go. And so then of course all the monkeys are on the ground reaching through the fence to grab the worms while I'm trying to scoop them back into the bowl as fast as I can. That must have been the greatest thing ever, like HOLY SH*T FREE WORMS EVERYWHERE.

  I did also have a capuchin monkey throw food at me. I ignored it because I was observing a different monkey at the time, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the one that I assume threw the food come up to the fence and stick her arm under the door to try to reclaim the food she'd thrown at me, but it was out of her reach. Karma."
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  (#11) The Tiny But Fierce Chickadee

  From PyrrhuraMolinae:

  "Have worked in various wildlife rehab/research facilities, including a bird sanctuary where we did mist-netting (setting up very fine nets between trees to catch songbirds) and banding of wild birds for research/population counts. Handled everything from thrushes to woodpeckers to crows to sparrows... and the biggest jerks?

  F*cking CHICKADEES.

  Most of the birds were scared or curious when we took them out of the nets. The chickadees? Were f*cking pissed. There was something bizarrely respectable about it. Here I am holding a bird smaller than the palm of my hand whose head I could crush with my f*cking thumb, and it's going, 'You may be bigger than me but if you don't let me go I will rip your f*cking cuticle off.'
• 

  (#12) Bats Can Be Stubborn

  From conservio:

  "Right now it's the short tailed leaf nosed fruit bat.

  I'm an intern in a well known zoo. We have a wet cave filled with probably 1,000 of these f*ckers. The door is surrounded by a wire cage. When we go to feed them we just let the door open and let the bats fly in the cage. When we leave we have to heard [sic] them into the cave. As an intern I'm not allowed to touch them. So I put my hand up by them to guide them.

  Except they don't like that and they'll fly right in my face and hover there for a few minutes.

  One day I was by myself doing it and one of the little f*ckers would not get in the damn cave. I stood there for like 10 minutes doing jazz fingers and he just hung there.

  Assh*le."
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  (#13) The Cuckoo Kookaburra

  From PizzaLinter:

  "Not a facility I work at currently but we had a kookaburra who would catch lizards, snakes, frogs, and even earthworms so he could feed them to you. You would be standing around doing your job and all of a sudden he shows up on your shoulder trying to force feed you a lizard he whacked on the ground 30 times.

  Oh by the way if you covered your mouth, why not try the ear? The ear is a great place to put a dead lizard or live earthworm..."
• 

  (#14) When Raptors Become Love Birds

  From Varanus-komodoensis:

  "Imprinted raptors will try to mate with your head if you're not careful. This is especially problematic when you're dealing with large birds, like eagles. Fortunately the largest bird that's attempted this with me is a Mississippi Kite, so I'm safe for now..."
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  (#15) The Biting Lemur

  From bragodouche:

  "Previously was a zookeeper in a small hometown zoo when we were allowed to go in with many of the animals.

  A ring-tailed lemur, only one of them tho. The other was precious. This particular lemur was a rescue from a pretty sh*tty situation. He was kept in a man's kitchen in a bird cage. Yup, a bird cage. We guessed he was only ever handled or fed by the man of the family. He was rescued after the man passed away. When given to the zoo, the blonde woman had scratches up and down her arms. Because of his past he HATED females. He would freak out, scratching his arms, rubbing and biting his tail, and attack the holding whenever a female was near. It was really sad.

  I was a newish keeper was just trained in a new area including the lemurs. I wanted to get to know the lemur better and earn his trust. The other keeper of the area had a relatively good relationship with him so I knew I could build one. After a few days of working with him, I decided his improved behavior meant I would be able to go in with him during lunch time. Everything was going well until I threw the food into the holding. This huge gesture freaked him out. He jumps onto me and bites THROUGH my ear.

  Easily, the biggest douche in the zoo. I loved him though. It was clearly not his fault. I ended growing a better relationship with him through feeding him grapes. Needless to say, I knew better than to go in with him again."

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