Talk to the Animals

"I know all the sounds animals make,

and make them all day from the moment I wake.

I roar like a mouse and I purr like a moose,

I hoot like a duck and I moo like a goose.

I squawk like a cat and I quack like a frog,

I oink like a bear and I honk like a hog,

I croak like a cow and I bark like a bee.

No wonder the animals marvel at me."

- Jack Prelutsky

Walking around the zoo on a busy day (which, being the beginning of January, this is most definitely not), you'd think a lot of our visitors were familiar with Prelutsky and his poem.  Walk by the monkeys or apes, and you are sure to hear a chorus of "Ooo ooo aaahs," all coming from the public side of the barrier.  You may see people growl at the big cats or bears, or hoot at the owls.  I seldom hear people try to make an elephant noise, but that's fair enough, because those are hard to make. 


The giraffe exhibit, blissfully, is generally silent.


One of the first things that we typically learn as kids are the sounds that animals make.  Looking back at this, I have no idea why this should be the case.  Many children don't meet a pig or sheep until their first visit to a zoo, so why is it so ingrained our minds that they have to learn how to "oink" or "baa"?  To take a page from one of my favorite fiction authors, where a character spends every night reading his son's favorite picture book, "That's Not My Cow,"

"But is this a book for a city kid?  When would he ever hear these noises?  In the city, the only sound those animals would make as 'sizzle.'  But the nursery was full of the conspiracy, with bah-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked."

- Thud! Terry Pratchett

Sensible or not, from an early age we are taught to talk to the animals, and it makes sense that we want them to talk back.  Visitors try so hard to get a vocal response out of animals.  The problem is, most of us stink at it.  The wolves in the zoo know that your howl is not another wolf, so they would just as soon you stop trying.  Ironically, they seem very keen on responding to the sirens of police cars and fire engines and ambulances rolling by outside the gates.


Perhaps because they aren't exposed to nearly as many human mockingbirds as their zoo-born counterparts, I've found wild animals to be slightly more gullible when it comes to responding to and falling for human voice actors.  I once called in a wild barred owl while camping one night, luring it in with my weak rendition of "Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all?"  And on safari in East Africa, I once stopped a spotted hyena dead in its tracks with a passable imitation of its whoop and chortle.  Granted, it only stopped long enough to give me a glare that was equal parts puzzled and withering before loping back off into the savannah, but it did stop.


One special memory I have of zoo animals and humans talking came from watching an animal ambassador kookaburra do a meet-and-greet with a crowd of children.  The kids were encouraged to laugh, which is generally easy to do for small kids (just mention the words "fart" or "poopy pants").  When they began to giggle, the kookaburra replied, belting out wild peals of crazed laughter.  This inspired the children to laugh louder, and the kookaburra replied in kind.


For that moment, at least, a connect was forged.  The kookaburra and the kids had a bond, and those children, I'm sure, would always remember laughing with the bird at the zoo.