The Silverback has an escape-history and may have been provoqued.
Here's just some facts. (Your panic report is pretty accurate)

The dark secret may be that as reports tell, a few minuted before he escaped he had been pestered by boys (any evolutionary explanation why not girls?) throwing little stones at him. The directly grabbed the woman who was (with her husband) a regular, almost daily visitor of the gorilla island.
"(he knew her)".And he panicked. He was was not an agressive animal and will not be treated as such.

Victim
The heavily wounded victim has been on the operation table till 01 AM today. The 57 year old woman is drugged to keep her in sleeping condition.
She has a shattered hand, a wrist fractured and a double armfracture. Her chest has been crushed.
According to her husband the woman who was dragged and attacked had a special bond (?) with the gorilla , Bokito. At the moment of the escape they were not looking his way. Her husband will be questioned (?). Bokito jumped the two yard water ditch and climbed out.
The 11 years old , 180 kilogram silver back had been raised by humans , since he was rejected by his mother and reacts to human contact.
Maybe he was provoqued. He jumped the 2-yard water ditch and climbed out.
He already escaped when he was still in the Berlin Zoo in 2004. Bokito will not be killed , but the gorilla island will be changed. Untill that's been done they will keep all gorilla's inside.

Escape page Bokito
This is a mish mash of image, video and text, all Dutch language sorry. The second, Flemish item may be best.
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Last edited by BranShea; 05/20/07 01:29 PM.