Photo: R. Tsubin/Getty
It looks like the start of aPlanet of the Apesmovie, but this great ape escape is very real.
Visitors to the Belfast Zoo also posted footage online of what happened after the apes got our of their enclosure. In the clips, the animal escapees are shown roaming around zoo, getting within feet of the park’s human visitors.
Monaghan, a mother of two near the chimpanzee exhibit with her kids when the animals escaped,told BBCthat at first she was worried that apes might “attack or take the kids.” After it became clear the chimps weren’t aggressive, Monaghan said she found the up-close experience to be “grand.”
The escape didn’t cause any serious snags for the zoo, mostly because the apes let themselves back in.
“They’re intelligent primates and know they’re not supposed to be out of their enclosure, so got back in themselves,” zookeeper Alyn Cairns told BBC, adding that the animals are “quite cowardly.”
RELATED VIDEO: Inside The Viral Moment Between Dying Chimpanzee And Biologist
According to Belfast city council, which operates the zoo, only one chimp fully left the exhibit, and they quickly returned to their enclosure under the watchful eye of a zookeeper.
While the Belfast zoo likes to make their enclosures as “natural” as possible, Cairns said, they will likely remove or shorten some of the trees in the chimpanzee exhibit to prevent another escape.
This not the first escape for this Belfast Zoo in 2019. A red panda named Amber briefly went missing from her enclosure last month, reports The Guardian. She was later found in a garden near the zoo and returned to her enclosure.
source: people.com
