PR: Avoid looping on large numpy arrays

[impact27]

Some numpy arrays have a dtype (such as int32) that excludes any objects. In that case, looping the array looking for a quantity is not helpful, and can waste a lot of time if the array is large.

• Closes # (insert issue number)
• Executed pre-commit run --all-files with no errors
• The change is fully covered by automated unit tests
• Documented in docs/ as appropriate
• Added an entry to the CHANGES file

[impact27]

Not exactly a benchmark, but I have one function that went from 16s to 2s execution

[andrewgsavage]

done this in #1987