Working as a volunteer zookeeper, I discovered that animals have a sadistic sense of humor. Bored by their confined existence they were constantly looking for new forms of entertainment. In certain cases, boredom made them dangerous, but in others it in made them quite funny.

Gibbons

My husband, Greg, at the time frequently was given the task of cleaning the primate cages. His nemesis was the Gibbon.  On the coldest winter mornings, when you could see your breath, the cages still had to be hosed down. The gibbon seemed to particularly enjoy these mornings.

Gibbons are amazing acrobats using their long, powerful arms to swing from branch to branch and even from tree to tree. Our gibbon would stay in the highest branches of his arboreal complex, far from the cold water of the hose, waiting… Once he was certain that Greg was completely absorbed with his work, he would glide swiftly and silently down, extend his open palm right in front of the powerful spray  and drench his keeper. Before Greg could retaliate, the gibbon would  be out of reach, safely back in the highest branches.

No matter how hard he tried or how closely he watched, Greg always got a soaking and never got revenge. The gibbon demonstrated an amazing intelligence, patience, cunning and sense of humor.

Emus

While my husband worked the primates, I often found myself in the paddocks with elephants, giraffes, wallabies and emu. The Wallaby/Emu enclosure had a barn which required frequent cleaning. It was my job to fill the wheelbarrow with the dirty straw, using a giant pitch fork, then take it down the long, steep hill to the dumpster.

One hot afternoon, in the heat and dust of the barn, I was throwing the straw into the wheelbarrow, which was parked just outside the stall door. When I was reasonably sure it was full, I stepped outside to take the wheel barrow to the dumpster.  I was startled by an emu, standing there surrounded by a pile of straw. It had had been pulling the straw out of the wheelbarrow, and throwing it on the ground, as fast as I had been shoveling it in! Perhaps it thought it was helping, but I prefer to believe that it knew exactly what it was doing…and thought it was pretty funny.

Chimps

One day I was given the privilege of cleaning the chimpanzee cages. This was back in the day when the zoo relied on the city for money and the cages were little more than cement, bars and a tire swing for entertainment.

While I worked, the chimps stayed on the swings, avoiding the water which tended to back up as the drains were slow. When I finished I was winding up the large hose at the base of the faucet when “whack” something wet hit the side of my head. The chimps started shrieking and before I could react I was struck again. Too late to do anything about it, I realized the chimps were throwing handfuls of shit, which had to be fresh since I had just cleaned there cage!

I imagine that their display was a mixture of  rage at being confined and amusement at getting revenge on their captor. It was also very amusing to the zoo visitors watching the spectacle. I certainly could not blame them. It was a long, undignified walk back to the keepers quarters with ape shit in my hair!