Horrifying consequences woman faced after smiling into gorilla enclosure
At long last, the weather finally seems to be hotting up and you may well be planning a trip to the local zoo soon.
For a lot of families it's a no-brainer day out, guaranteeing hours of fun for the kids and the opportunity for them to get pretty close to their favourite animal.
In case you didn't know, you should never smile into a gorilla enclosure.
This may sound random, but ever since we heard about one traumatic case, this advice has been at the forefront of our minds.
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Back in 2007, children started throwing rocks at a gorilla called Bokito at the Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam.
Before this act occurred, it is thought that a woman who regularly attended the zoo had approached the gorilla and smiled at him whilst making eye contact.
Shortly after in a terrifying turn of events, Bokito managed to escape his enclosure and headed straight for the unsuspecting woman.
Bokito dragged the woman around and caused her multiple fractures and bit her repeatedly.
But his terrifying outburst didn't stop for a while longer. Bokito then advanced towards a restaurant and broke in. There, he injured three more people.
Eventually, he was taken back to his enclosure after being caught and sedated.
The woman who had been smiling at Bokito later shared her story.
She had visited him four times a week on average ever since he was just four months old.
Her husband said that a zookeeper advised her not to make eye contact with Bokito or smile at him - but she did it anyway.
She told newspaper De Telegraaf following the ordeal: "If I laugh at him, he laughs back."
These intelligent creatures clearly don't take kindly to too much eye contact from humans.
Gorilla Trekk, a company based in Uganda, clearly states you should not make eye contact with gorillas.
Their website reads: "To mountain gorillas, any person who keeps direct eye contact with them is a challenger and an enemy who comes to destroy the family.
"Direct eye contact will therefore force the silverback to charge and fight you in order to defend his family. If you want to be peaceful with gorillas, you should avoid eye contact."
After the story was shared on Reddit's DamnThat'sInteresting forum, people were quick to share their own thoughts and experiences.
One person recalled: "I once worked in a zoo on work experience at 15. I made the briefest of eye contact with a sliver back at the back feeding part of the enclosure, (not dissimilar to silence if the lambs prison, but with fencing) that was enough to of caused it to run at me and smash against the weak looking fencing with both fists and grunting heavily.
"He then grunt called to the others, who sloped off there platforms and started trying to get me with sticks and throw hay at me, I was quickly escorted out.
"It was prob because a cute baby gorilla was bashing its chest till it fell backwards and I was watching that, and the silver back was watching me in the background.
"They are very much not to be messed with and like pretty much all other animals, not to be imprisoned for our viewing curiosity."
Another person wrote: "You see so many documentaries showing gorillas acting so peacefully and extolling their gentleness you forget how dangerous they can be when angered."
While a second reasoned: "Can’t believe the mental gymnastics being done avoiding the fact the Zoo was set up to allow a wild animal escape is insane."
Regardless, we've taken notes.
Kya Buller