Zoos’ New Dilemma: Gorillas and Screen Time

Great apes have become interested in watching videos of themselves on the phones of visitors. ‘What does it do for the gorilla?’

SAN DIEGO—The four hulking male gorillas roamed their zoo enclosure, sitting pensively on rocks overlooking a waterfall and climbing a wooden structure.

Suddenly, an 18-year-old western lowland gorilla named Ekuba bounded up to the glass. The 380-pound animal looked expectantly at a man wearing a shirt bearing the gorilla’s image as he pulled out his phone.

Ekuba stood on all fours and began watching videos—of himself and other gorillas.

“He really is watching! I wonder what he’s thinking,” said Cecilia Lee, a visitor from Orange County. “Anything that brings us together is fascinating.”

Ekuba isn’t the only gorilla enthralled with devices. Across North America, zoos have grappled with, and sometimes embraced, primates taking an interest in screen time.

In Louisville, Ky., a 27-year-old gorilla named Jelani has been enamored with phones for years, flicking his finger or tapping the glass when he’s ready for a visitor to swipe to the next shot. At the Toronto Zoo, keepers have hung signs to dissuade showing screens to gorillas, citing disruption to their family dynamic.

The interactions speak to man’s age-old attraction to gorillas, which share 98% of our DNA, and a desire to connect with them.

“They are a window to ourselves, they really are,” said Ron Evans, general curator at the Louisville Zoo. “Except for their superhuman strength.”

Evans said Jelani’s phone-watching hasn’t been a detriment to the otherwise quiet life he leads with his troop-mate, Bengati, so they’ve allowed it in moderation.

On a recent day in San Diego, visitors marveled at the phone-watching gorillas. A spokeswoman for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, however, said the trend is one “we do not condone and strongly discourage.”  

Adam Chiu came over to get a closer look at Ekuba’s video habit, surprised. He concluded it was cool. “It’s interesting to see how similar they really are to us,” Chiu, who lives in San Francisco, said. “You look them in the eyes and see consciousness, there’s something there.”

Eleven-year-old Calla DaCruz stood riveted, taking selfies and watching as male gorillas swung from ropes and tussled. She said she was surprised to see a gorilla watching a woman’s phone, but more amazed by their natural instincts. “I’ve never seen any other animal fight like how they do.”  

A few self-proclaimed gorilla groupies come almost daily to the world-renowned San Diego Zoo, filming and then showing the “home videos” to the apes.

Four brother gorillas who live in a troop are sometimes shown videos of their mother, who resides apart from them with a silverback male. The separation reflects how gorillas would organize in the wild, where a single alpha male lives with several females and young offspring, while mature males must go off on their own or band together as bachelors.

Calla DaCruz, in a selfie from the gorilla exhibit. Photo: Calla DaCruz

The San Diego superfans prefer to bond with the primates in anonymity. The man in the gorilla shirt (with a matching baseball hat) and a female regular refused to give their names, citing a fear of having zoo access removed. “This is my happy place,” said the man, who used nods and hand signals to try to goad gorillas into photogenic moves.

Tears came to the woman’s eyes as she said the zoo might want to block her and others from showing the animals videos. “Any enrichment is good enrichment,” she said.

Volunteer docents that day appeared split, with some smiling and chatting with superfans as they showed videos, and one saying she was told in training to discourage it.

The San Diego Zoo spokeswoman said: “We make a concerted effort to prevent guests from distracting the gorillas with their screens, and if we do see this happening, we will step in to stop it.” Instead of trying to connect with apes through technology meant for humans, guests should passively observe them “as they behave like gorillas.”

By the 1930s, young gorillas were taken from African rainforests and transported to barred zoo enclosures with bare floors. The few born in zoos were separated from their parents and raised by humans.

Seismic change for zoo gorillas took place from the late 1970s to 1990s. Scientists realized the key to the apes’ well-being would come from letting gorillas raise their young, in sprawling enclosures that gave an option to roam away from the glare of visitors.

Gorillas, who can live into their 50s or 60s in captivity, stopped being taken from the wild. One of the last “founder” gorillas in U.S. zoos, as those born in Africa are known, died in San Diego this month at 52. Today, there are around 350 gorillas in accredited North American zoos.  

Some see the trend of gorillas watching phone videos as the latest human indignity foisted upon the endangered gentle giants, which spend most of their time in the wild eating vegetation.

“I get that people want that sort of connection,” said Beth Armstrong, a conservationist who helped shape a pioneering gorilla program at the Columbus Zoo beginning in the 1980s. “But the reality is: What does it do for the gorilla?” She wishes people would put down their phones and learn from watching the animals, be it parenting tips or how to navigate a tough social dynamic.

Decades ago, scientists debated whether great apes could actually recognize images in photos or videos. Today, it’s abundantly clear they do, said Robert Shumaker, president and chief executive of the Indianapolis Zoo and a great-ape researcher.

Chimpanzees play cognitive games at the Indianapolis Zoo to help researchers understand great ape intelligence. Photo: Chris Martin

In the Indianapolis Zoo, chimpanzees and orangutans use touch screens to learn to communicate using symbols and play cognitive games like tic-tac-toe. Shumaker said visitors who watch apes demonstrate mental abilities often come away with more support for conservation efforts.

Shumaker said it doesn’t surprise him, based on his research, that gorillas are engaging with phones.

“But I would give the same advice to any great ape I know as I would to anyone in my own family,” he said. “This can’t be all day for you. You’ve got to do other things.”

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