These tips from an ex-zoo employee will increase your chances of seeing interesting zoo animal behaviour rather than only sleeping animals and help ensure that going to the zoo will be a fun, enjoyable and educational experience for you and your family.

#1 ) Best day to go to the zoo: Mid week (Tuesday to Thursday) is the best time to go to the zoo. Why? Friday, Saturday and Sundays are the busiest days, and crowds may make your experience less enjoyable. On Mondays the zoo animals are frequently lethargic from all the chaos from the weekend and are not as active, so there won’t be as much action to see.

#2) Best time to go to the zoo: As soon as the zoo opens. Zoo animals are frequently feeding then, so you may be treated to some interesting behaviour and zoos are not usually overly busy first thing in the morning so you will not have to fight the crowds. Most zoos start to get busy by 10:00, so the earlier you go the better. If at all possible avoid going between 10:00 – 3:00. These are the busiest hours at zoos and usually the hottest and when it’s hot outside, most zoo animals, like people, slow down, so during these hours you are more likely to see animals sleeping than doing anything else. The exception to this is feeding times. Some zoos purposely feed animals during the peak hours to provide a better visitor experience. Keep in mind though; you will likely not be alone. If you don’t mind the crowds, try and find out in advance when feeding times are by checking the zoo’s website or asking a zoo employee. If it’s not possible to go first thing in the morning, I would also recommend going from 3:00 to closing time. Many zoos feed the animals their dinner close to closing time and its cooler then, so you may see some feeding action at this time without all the crowds. I would also recommend going in bad weather or winter months since this keeps crowds away and you are likely to have the zoo more or less to yourself. Most zoos have indoor enclosures so you are still likely to see a lot of zoo animals.

#3) First stop – playground: If you have children that love going to the zoo playground, make this your first stop. I’ve seen parents drag their children around the zoo all day to see zoo animals while the kids keep asking when they can go to the playground, meanwhile the parents become more and more frustrated. Don’t worry; if your children are more interested in the playground than the animals, you’re not alone. By making this the first stop, most children will have then gotten the playground out of their system and will then be more interested in seeing the animals.

 #4)  Buy tickets in advance:  Zoos are usually busy during the summer months so to avoid long line ups buy a season pass to encourage you to go often, which I highly encourage, or buy your tickets in advance if possible from the zoo website.

#5) Visit only one or two areas of the zoo: Instead of trying to visit the entire zoo and making a long day out of it, you may find that you will have a much more positive experience if you just choose to visit one or two areas of the zoo and stay for a few hours. For example, if you or your children love monkeys and koala bears, perhaps you only visit the primate exhibits and the Australia exhibit. This will also enable you to spend more time at each zoo animal enclosure, increasing your chances of seeing interesting behaviour. This shorter day may also be a more positive experience for everyone as I’ve witnessed many families who have spent a full day at the zoo trying to see everything and they look tired and grumpy on their way out. In many cases they would have been better off to leave several hours before they did when nobody is having a good time. By buying a season’s pass, you will not feel like you’ve wasted your money by only staying a few hours.

#6) Behind the Scenes: Many zoos offer behind the scenes experiences that provide a truly unique encounter. For example, at the Calgary Zoo, you can bathe an elephant, or experience lions, tigers or bears up close with a Zoo Keeper. By participating in these experiences (which usually have to be booked in advance, often weeks in advance), you will learn more about the species in general, and also the individual animals, their names, behaviours and meet a Zoo Keeper who is usually more than happy to share some interesting stories. These experiences are not always cheap, but for a special occasion or a treat, it is a wonderful experience in itself. It will also make your future zoo visits much more memorable and meaningful, since you and your family will be excited to go see Rhoni the bratty elephant who you’ve actually bathed and fed peanuts to! You and your family will also love recognizing and identifying individual zoo animals and telling other zoo visitors how you can tell the elephants apart.

#7) Zoo Animal Presentations: These are usually included in the price of your zoo admission and offer a more economical alternative to behind the scenes, but not usually a hands on experience. In peak months many zoos have presentations by zoo staff on the most popular animals that will provide interesting facts about the zoo animals and may provide tips on how to recognize individual animals. These presentations are usually extremely busy, but are normally quite good. You can contact the zoo ahead of time or check their website for the times so you can plan your zoo visit accordingly. This is also true if you are not interested in the zoo animal presentation, in that case you will want to avoid the area where these are occurring.

#8) Build “relationships” with zoo animals: This is my best tip for making your zoo visits unforgettable. By learning about the individual zoo animals and spending time at their enclosure and visiting frequently, you will develop a bond with the animals and will come to recognize small nuances in their behaviour that the casual zoo visitor misses out on, like the group dynamics which frequently change depending on the mood of the individuals, while some things never change such as who is most dominant. Reading books about animal behaviour will also help you identify what is going on. For example, showing teeth to all animals, except to us humans, is a sign of aggression in the animal kingdom, so if you want the spider monkey to come close to you, don’t smile and show your teeth, they will likely stay far away from you since you are “threatening” them. Spending time at one zoo animal enclosure also increases your chances of meeting a Zoo Keeper or docent (trained Zoo volunteer) that can provide you with more fun facts on the individual animals in the enclosure.

As part of a non-invasive university research project, I observed and recorded the gorilla’s behaviour for months. One day, after a particularly long day of observing the gorillas, the smallest one, Barika who was about 2 years old, came up to me and starting fogging up the glass with her mouth right in front of me. I did the same back to her. She ran off and I thought I had broken one of the rules of gorilla etiquette – never show your teeth unless you are trying to be aggressive. Instead she came back with a piece of broccoli and tried to feed me through the glass into my open mouth. That was over seven years ago and is still a memory I hold close to my heart. Another time, I was fortunate enough to go behind the scenes to feed the gorillas with the keepers. I fed Zwalani, a young gorilla first and Kakinga the silverback, let me know I had fed out of order (the silverback the most dominant in a gorilla troop always gets fed first) by spitting on my head. The keepers said he must have liked me (by then I had spent over 500 hours observing the gorillas) as normally we would have pooped on my head!

Building a relationship with individual zoo animals (even though they are unlikely to recognize you unless you spend hundreds of hours with them) will result in your most unforgettable zoo experiences that so few people take the time to experience. I hope that you are one of them.

I am also interested in hearing your "going to the zoo" tips and experiences so please feel free to share in the “Comments” section below.