It’s common knowledge that gorillas are smart, but they aren’t always as well known when it comes to their humorous side.
They are slower in their movements and calmer than their smaller monkey friends. Monkeys can be silly and very lively. If anyone in the animal kingdom will be cracking jokes, most of us assume that it will be them. Sometimes, we’re wrong.
An ode to gorillas
Gorillas are amazingly intelligent.
Take the example of Koko, the gorilla who learned one thousand words in sign language and also learned more than two thousand words in spoken English. She was even featured twice in National Geographic’s with one cover photo being one she took herself in front of a mirror. She may have been one of the first to get a selfie into a magazine.
However, what’s taken the internet by storm is a more recent example involving a gorilla in Miami.
“Don’t feed the gorillas!”
The viral video shows a gorilla in a Miami zoo sitting by and curiously watching tourists on the other side of a barrier.
Someone tries to feed the gorilla an orange, but instead of taking it, the gorilla responds unusually. Using sign language, the gorilla dutifully informs the tourist that they are not allowed to accept food from visitors.
You can hear the excitement and amazement in the crowd at this point in the video as the gorilla continues to stare. Someone still ignores the gorilla’s warning and throws a piece of orange in their direction.
The gorilla effortlessly catches the orange, and sneakily hides it by their side. A few seconds later, the gorilla looks towards the direction of their handler to see if he is watching. He’s not.
The sneaky animal pulls out the orange and starts to eat it. Almost immediately, you can hear his handler shout,
“Please don’t feed him!”
Already caught, the gorilla shifts their seating position to face his handler while still eating the orange, almost in defiance. He finishes the pieces of orange one by one until the video cuts out.
See, gorillas are smart.
The video is short, about 3 minutes long, but already has more than 700,000 views, more than 6,000 likes, and about 1,000 comments on YouTube.
Humor aside, there are multiple reasons why zoos are very strict on their no-feeding policies.
Seriously, don’t feed the animals
Human food might be dangerous. It depends on the animal and the food, but processed human food is generally less nutritious than the animals’ usual sources of food. It may also contain ingredients that they are not accustomed to digesting.
There is also the possibility that they might be on a restricted diet that limits how much they eat each day or eliminates certain fruits or vegetables for their unique health concerns and weight maintenance.
In some cases, some of these foods may cause illness or be fatal to the animal it has been given to. So, as fun as it is to get away with sneaking food through the bars (and even if this one gorilla seems to appreciate it), it’s better to leave the animal feeding to the experts who know them.
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