Spooge's Spit Up - Zoo Upsets Redheads

An Australian zoo has dropped an ad campaign offering free visits to people with ginger hair to highlight the plight of orang-utans.

Adelaide Zoo ran advertisements offering "free Zoo entry for all rangas" during the school holidays, reports the Advertiser.

"Ranga" - an abbreviation of orang-utan - is a common nickname in Australia for redheads.

"We seem to be getting quite a bit of a negative reaction to that request," said Zoos SA's director of conservation programs Kevin Evans.

"People are possibly more sensitive about it than we thought," he said.

"We have a campaign over the school holidays because of orang-utans being an endangered species - and so are human redheads," Mr Evans said.

"Because of the way people move around these days, the genes that carry redheads are breeding out to brunettes and blondes."

The zoo has dropped the ads but will continue to offer free entry to people with red hair for the next two weeks.

Zoo staff will not seek proof that patrons are natural redheads: "We're not actually checking tops and tails, or anything like that," Mr Evans said.