That’s a big time NOPE from me.
At this point, we all just trust that the glass in certain exhibits at the zoo are built to withstand an attack or escape attempt by the animal being held. None of us would willingly go to the zoo to see our favorite animals (usually with our families) if we thought there was any potential danger, right?
It’s always fun to see the large primates walk around in their artificial habitat (especially if a goose lands inside), and zoo goers that were recently at the San Diego Zoo were standing right by the glass to get a good look at the gorillas when this terrifying moment took place.
Something like this is undoubtedly “good day to wear brown pants” territory. The footage of this incident, which took place on October 11, went viral online shortly after it happened. That’s no surprise, because this kind of accident doesn’t happen all of the time… or at least you hope it doesn’t.
According to the San Diego Zoo, Denny – a 10-year-old lowland gorilla – was running around his gorilla forest habitat enclosure when the incident occurred. In the video, you can see the big, bumbling primate sprint towards the area where zoo goers are watching from, then simultaneously hitting both of its elbows against the tempered glass, breaking one of the three layers. Previous videos of this gorilla doing a similar thing, but not breaking the glass, also circulated online at the time of this incident.
There was one other gorilla in the compound when Denny broke the glass, and fortunately, neither of them were hurt during the outburst. The San Diego Zoo said in a statement that they’ll briefly be relocated while the glass is repaired:
“Denny was not injured. Both gorillas will be cared for behind the scenes until the panel has been replaced.”
Obviously, this was a scary situation, but one that’s very possible when you put apex predators in enclosures. It doesn’t seem like it was a violent outburst by Denny the gorilla. Rather, it was just a normal primate activity that just so happened to result in some broken glass. And the good news was that all of those at the zoo were fine as well, because the large animal was only able to break one of three protective layers when it made aggressive contact with it.
Some online speculated that tension between the two gorillas in the exhibit is what led to Denny attacking the glass portion of the enclosure. Regardless of how it happened, it’s just good that no one – including the gorilla himself – was harmed. Once the exhibit is back open (the San Diego Zoo didn’t provide a timeline on that), it should be back to business as usual.
And I’m sure the San Diego Zoo hopes that this doesn’t happen again:
@emmyx111 it was the younger one, not the gorilla shown at the end #sandiego #sandiegozoo #zoo #gorilla #breaksglass ♬ Epic News – DM Production
Nothing like an innocent, fun-filled, gorilla-glass-breaking day at the zoo, eh?
