The actual line, from Congreve’s “The Mourning Bride,” is “Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast” and no-one would consider a giraffe a savage beast, but zookeepers at DierenPark Amersfoort are using pop music to distract giraffes at the animal park from New Year’s Eve fireworks.
According to a report by AFP, zookeepers will let their herd of giraffes listen to the Radio 2 Top 2000 year-end countdown. “We found that pop music works best to calm the animals down and the bangs become more background noise,” zoo spokesperson Josien van Eijk told AFP. She said the zookeepers began playing the music for the giraffes a few days ago, but that will “perhaps just turn it a little louder over New Year.”
This not the first instance of zoos and aquariums using music to affect animal behavior. In 2009, Sea Life London Aquarium played several Barry White songs and other soul music to encourage a pair of tiger sharks to mate.
