Teen Gorilla Glued to Phone

Like many sixteen-year-olds, Amare spends way too much time looking at screens. Amare is a 415-pound gorilla who lives at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

Last week another young male rushed at Amare in a display of aggression that’s common among gorillas as they sort out a pecking order. But Amare was so distracted by a smartphone – a human was showing him videos through a glass partition – he barely reacted.

“It seemed to almost surprise Amare because his attention was very much distracted,” Stephen Ross, director of the zoo’s Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

No one was harmed in the interaction, but Amare has been increasingly distracted by visitors’ phones in recent months. He lives with three other young bachelor gorillas, all teenagers kept separated from a family group that includes a dominant male. Amare likes to sit close to the partition so that he can peep at the screens.

“It’s probably a cyclical phenomena, the more he shows interest the more people want to engage in it,” said Ross. “It’s something we’ve noticed and have talked about a lot in terms of a strategy to address it.” For the moment the strategy is to put up a rope line to keep humans and their phones a few feet from the glass partition.
Amare has indiscriminate digital tastes. Selfies, family, pets, and video footage of Amare himself have all grabbed his attention. The zoo encourages visitors to take pics and videos, but asks that they take care not to distract the gorillas.

Photo credit: Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times