Gorilla Tries to Escape Zoo Enclosure

A YouTube user recorded a gorilla trying to escape from an exhibit at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro on Sunday. The video shows the animal using a stick to climb to the top of the glass wall. At 0:33, you can see the gorilla nearly pull itself over the wall with both hands.

Zoo officials tell News 14 Carolina a storm knocked down the tree limb and cut a wire to an electric fence, two things that let the gorilla get closer to escape.



User name: queenerica368
Location: Asheboro, North Carolina
Date uploaded: June 13
Event date: June 13
Views: 6,786
Click here to watch this video on YouTube.

Where Are the Wild Things? On YouTube.

The Wall Street Journal blog recently reported that in tough economic times, zoos and aquariums are turning to YouTube to introduce their animals and exhibits to new audiences. Some are getting incredible traction, like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, whose video about a fish with a transparent head has received over 1.7 million views and attention from National Geographic and Steven Colbert.

Also, as state and federal budgets are cut, other zoos and aquariums are using YouTube to launch advocacy campaigns to save their funding. The Bronx Zoo released two adorable PSAs featuring a porcupine whose "job" had been terminated. Here's one of them:



Says Luke Groskin who produced the Bronx Zoo videos, "we’ve amassed roughly 70,000 letters, emails, petitions" and in a recent follow-up email, "it looks very likely that NY state is going to restore all of our funding! We credit this likely turn around in part to our public awareness campaign - particularly the placement it received in YouTube."