A gorilla picks up and carries a toddler around like a doll, revealing that these species can be gentle, and proving that attacks are rare cases.
The video of the showing the child with the animal was made 22 years ago by British conservation activist Damian Aspinall at Howletts Wild Animal Park in Kent, but hasn’t made it public it until now.
Aspinall feared a backlash because the little girl seen playing with the 300-pound primate is his daughter Tansy — who was just 18 months old at the time.
He said he released the video to show how gentle gorillas actually are, ABC News reported.
Gorillas do attack humans, but it’s rare. And the gorilla in the video never lays a hand on Tansy as she pats its head and the two go down a slide together.
Aspinall’s foundation works to send endangered gorillas back into the wild. Another video shows him searching the forests of West Africa for a gorilla named Kwibi who was released five years earlier.
Aspinall isn’t sure if Kwibi will recognize him — or attack him — but they share an embrace and Kwibi introduces Aspinall to his new family in the wild.