A video caught the wild moment where a gorilla from the San Diego Zoo crashed into its glass enclosure, cracking the glass. According to KGTV, this gorilla sprinted into the viewing glass between the visitors and the enclosure on Saturday, October 11.
Videos by Suggest
Gorilla Caught On Video Cracking Enclosure Glass At San Diego Zoo
Luckily, the glass didn’t shatter completely as it only cracked one layer of the three tempered glass layers. Zoo officials reported that the incident involved a 10-year-old western lowland gorilla named Denny.
The impact startled the witnesses who were mere feet away from the glass. One woman described the collision as an earthquake. “It literally felt like an earthquake… before we realized that that was just him hitting [the glass],” said witness Jackie Doubler.
KTLA 5 interviewed another stunned witness, a woman named Katya Sutil. She hadn’t noticed the gorilla running as she’d been looking at her cellphone at the time. But she recalled the animal leaping and launching himself into the glass.
“He hit it with like his elbow or his forearm,” said Sutil. The gorilla slammed “right into the glass directly in front of my face.” Sutil had been celebrating her birthday that afternoon with her sister. They spent time taking videos of the gorillas minutes before the incident.
“I was so jolted, I fell back a few feet,” Sutil continued. “When I looked up to see what had happened, I just saw the gorilla staring directly at me, like making eye contact with me, and then this giant crack.”
Sutil described the crack as around 6 feet long. In the video, you could see a spider-like shatter that spread across the glass pane.
According to Doubler, the first witness, security guards came quickly to handle the situation. The crowd was filled with mixed reactions. While some stayed, others ran away.
“If he would hit that glass again, I definitely feel like it would have been a whole different story though,” said Doubler.
So what caused this type of reaction? Well, animal expert Dr. Annie Peterson spoke with KGTV about the gorilla’s sudden burst of energy.
“It may not necessarily have been an aggressive reaction,” said Peterson. “It may have been one of excitement, it may have been one of exploration.”