Amare, a 190kg gorilla at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, USA, has learned the habit of staring at the mobile phone screens of visitors. Visitors also enthusiastically showed her photos and videos through the glass wall, including selfies, family photos, pet videos, and even footage of Amare herself.
And now, this gorilla seems to have become so distracted that last week, when another teenage gorilla charged at it aggressively, Amare ignored it.
Stephen Ross, director of the Lester E Fisher Center for Apes Research and Conservation, says he’s very worried about Amare’s future. Amare is a gorilla that is classified as 16 years old and is quite young. It lives with three other young single gorillas and is maturing through interactions with fellow monkeys. But this interaction is being hampered by Amare’s smartphone addiction.
Amare, is now restricted from viewing smartphones with visitors.
Located in Chicago’s largest public park, with no admission fee, Amare’s zoo is a popular facility with more than 3.6 million visitors each year. There are many kinds of animals such as African lions, giraffes, polar bears, African penguins, red pandas and Japanese monkeys.
In recent months, zookeepers have had to install ropes to keep visitors a few feet away from the glass and block the impact of smartphones on animals.
“It could be a cyclical phenomenon: the more interested the monkey is, the more people want to use their phones to get its attention.”Ross said.
Visitors are now restricted from going near the gorilla enclosure.
Zoo officials are also worried that other male gorillas living in the same enclosure as Amare may also suffer from mobile screen addiction.
“What we’re noticing here is that it refuses to end up looking at a visitor’s phone screen for hours on end. It’s more of a quantity issue than a quality issue. If we want to do what’s best for animals, then we should resist the urge to sit there for hours and scroll through pictures with it.” Ross said.
Refer Guardian