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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Don't Bang the Glass

Well, this photo, shared by the Oakland Zoo, is an extreme example, but still... don't bang the glass.


A bear in a zoo behind damaged glass


This isn't just your ordinary window pane - otherwise it would never hold adult grizzly bears (plus the weight of that water) behind it.  It's six-inches worth of bulletproof glass, designed to spider-web instead of shattering when damaged.  So this looks scary, but is actually nothing to be too concerned about from a safety point of view.  I saw something similar during a visit I paid to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo last year, where the glass on some of their exhibits (including, ironically, the grizzly bears) was similarly damaged.


Of course, that damage was caused by hail, and so was a natural, unavoidable accident.  This highly expensive cluster was the work of the most dangerous of zoo animals, an unsupervised child, this one apparently armed with a rock or something along those lines.


It blows my mind sometimes how some visitors just cannot leave glass alone.  Don't bang it.  Don't tap it.  Don't press your nose up against it.  And for the love of all that is holy, don't lick it (seriously people?).  Just look through it and admire the animal.  It's a window - not a portal to another dimension.


Glass-banging is especially annoying in reptile and small mammal houses, where the environment is smaller and it is more difficult to get away from the source, unlike these bears, who could easily meander away.   The enclosed spaces make the sounds reverberate.  Also keep in mind, many small animals, such as snakes and arthropods, are very sensitive to vibration, so glass tapping is especially irritating to them.


Cobras and rattlesnakes seem to be the species which inadvertently invite the most glass-tapping, presumably from visitors who want to see their characteristic defensive postures.  Which reminds me of a fantastic sign that I saw in front of a cobra exhibit at one zoo:


"DON'T BANG THE GLASS - WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF IT BROKE?"

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