Gorillas, because of their size, are seen as a threat and aggressive beasts. But, in fact, they are among the most gentle of the apes. In fact, it is the chimpanzees that are prone to aggression.
This guy has a good understanding. He isn't niave at all, but intelligent. Animals form social networks same as humans, and as you move up to the primate scale, those networks form complications that appear more and more human.
So, all he did was rely upon his knowledge of gorilla behavior and he used that to present the moment in a way that was not a threat to them and also leveraged the relationship they had formed previously.
I love being around animals, which is why I love where I live. It is six acres in East New Mexico near the Texas border. It is called the high plains. But when I wake up to go to work in the monring, I never know exactly what I'm going to see. It could be a group of horses grazing next to my fence (owned by a neighbor but they use my pasture to feed sometimes), or a herd of cows anywhere on the four sides of my home.
But, the really special moments are when the wild animals appears. Oh yeah, tons of birds as you see anywhere. But, many times I see rabbits who regularly appear in the yard, many times with new babies they just raised. Once I saw one of the youngsters being chased around in a circle by one of the adults. Just like a scene of a parent chasing a child around the yard!
I've seen many pheasants, road runners, hawks, eagles, and coyotes. Many times at night I can go outside, sit down, and hear them howling in my back pasture. My two dogs don't join in with the howling, but I often hear them at night barking at something.
Today, I was mowing the yard and had to relocate two tortoises that had crawled in front of my mower's path. But first, I laid them down in front of my Brittany puppy. She had a ball in puppy curiousity. After a few minutes, and before anything bad could happen, I picked them up again and relocated them in my front yard to escape the dogs.
Man finds the most peace I think close to nature.
Ken
