So, what was that lesson many children learn about not teasing animals? No wait, not only did children apparently throw rocks at the gorilla, but the woman who was attacked and bitten had stared down the animal in a way you’re not supposed to, according to the zoo’s staff. She claimed that when she laughed, the gorilla seemed to laugh back, but in fact, this was a facial expression denoting “I’m gonna get you if you keep doing that”.

(Link: Dag)

Yesterday afternoon, in the Rotterdam Zoo (Diergaarde Blijdorp), the almost adult gorilla male Bokito escaped from his pen (crib? pad?) and basically attacked a woman by biting her. Then, he popped over to the terrace of the Oewanja restaurant at the zoo and totally freaked people out. An employee of the restaurant was (is still?) in shock and the zoo is offering victim help. How this happened is as yet unknown. The fact that he could swim and cross the moat in his pen/crib/pad is a mystery to the keepers, as they say gorillas cannot swim. Maybe this is a real Dutch water gorilla.

Moral of the story: we cage up wild animals for our own pleasure and we don’t like it when they take off and attack people.

(Link: Diergaarde Blijdorp, via Netherlands Post)