Communicating with a 375-pound male Silverback gorilla didn’t quite work the way a seven-year-old girl expected it to, resulting in some scared visitors to Omaha, Nebraska’s Henry Doorly Zoo.
The 16-second video of the incident that took place on April 16 showed the 20-year-old gorilla being watched by a group of people, including the family of the young girl. After her father, 35-year-old mechanic Kevin Cave, told her that gorillas would not be able to break the glass that separated the group from the gorilla, the girl decided to beat her chest in a playful manner.
The gorilla, named Kijito, saw the girl’s actions and ran forward toward the group of people, violently hitting the dividing window hard enough to crack it. The girl and her sister could be seen running away as quickly as possible, while Cave is heard commenting with a simple, “Oh, man.”
Cave had noted that the gorilla had been acting strange prior to his aggressive move to crack the glass, and that a zookeeper later told him that Kijito had already been in a fight earlier.
The zoo has since replaced the cracked glass with plywood until the replacement glass arrives, which should be in early May. The custom-made glass is specially ordered through a local company, and is expensive enough to cost as much as a used car.
The video has only been online since the day of the incident, but in that short period of time, it’s gotten nearly 19.7 million online views.