Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Kinky and bizarre?

A couple of weeks ago a gorilla at the Rotterdam zoo escaped its confines by scaling a high wall and jumping over a wide moat to severely wound a woman visitor. The 180-kg ape called Bokito jumped on the visitor - breaking her arm and wrist, and bit her repeatedly. Bokito then smashed his way into a cafetaria, where many more terrified visitors had sought refuge. The zoo was evacuated and the ape finally subdued with a sedative dart.

At first, public anger focussed on the zoo authorities and the gorilla, but the matter was not all that simple. It soon emerged that the woman attacked had been visiting the gorilla four times a week for the past several months! From her hospital bed, she declared that Bokita and she shared a "deep bond" and, despite what he had done to her, he "remains my darling".

The media proceeded to call the woman mad and sick. Some sections even theorised that he male gorilla's reaction stemmed from its natural instinct to "possess" and "dominate". The question no one asked was how the woman had become so lonely and desperate as to seek social satisfaction from a gorilla!