Zoo Asks Guests to Stop Showing Gorillas 'Upsetting' Videos
Please stop showing the gorillas episodes of Euphoria.
The Toronto Zoo has issued a plea to all visitors urging them to cease showing their gorillas cell phone videos. Some of the content, the zoo says, can be highly disturbing to the primates and even cause them to disassociate from their brood.
The zoo has now posted warning signs within the gorilla enclosure. “For the wellbeing of gorilla troop [sic], please refrain from showing them any videos or photos as some content can be upsetting and affect their relationships and behavior within their family.”
“We just want the gorillas to be able to be gorillas,” Hollie Ross, a supervisor of behavioral husbandry at the Toronto Zoo, told CP24 in an interview last week. “And when our guests come to the zoo, we want them to be able to see gorillas in a very natural state, and what they would be doing naturally—to sort of connect with them on that level,” Ross continued.
Although the zoo hasn’t recorded any marked changes in the behavior of the gorillas, they note that one of their brood is particularly susceptible to media.
Nassir is described on the zoo’s website as “truly the epitome of a teenager, fascinated by videos and screen time would dominate his life if he had his way.”
“We’ve had a lot of members and guests that actually will put their phones up to the glass and show him videos,” Maria Franke, the zoo’s director of wildlife conservation and welfare, reported to The Toronto Star.
“It was causing him to be distracted and not interacting with the other gorillas, and you know, being a gorilla. He was just so enthralled with gadgets and phones and the videos.”
Last year Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo put up a roped partition to keep phones away. The action came after a teenaged gorilla named Amare was getting too much screen time from guests. Amare had begun to dissociate from his brood, and the zoo worried it would interfere with a pivotal pre-adult developmental period. In effect, it could prevent Amare from learning how to be a gorilla.
Aside from the developmental hazards, Hollie Ross fails to see the overall point of sharing your screen with a gorilla. “We don't really want our guests coming and showing them videos. We would rather have them see them do gorilla things."