They do share more than 98 percent of human DNA - a closer match than any other animal. "The Old Man, he was always a good friend of mine after that," Wolf said.Īnd that's the thing about chimps and gorillas - they can be nurturing and friendly and, kind of human.
She looked at me and said, 'He saved your life.'" Wolf said. "They were looking at me like they were ready to go," said Wolf, who adds that none other than the world's foremost authority on chimps and a recurring visitor to the park, Jane Goodall, agreed. Then he threw my boat," recalled Wolf, who retired from Lion Country in 2015 after 40 years.Īt first, Wolf thought Old Man was angry, but quickly amended that assessment when he considered the mob of female chimps that had been heading his way. I see his face peek into the boat, he grabs me by the collar of my shirt and the crotch of my pants, puts me over his head and throws me into the water. The big male looked at me and said, 'Who are you?' He grabs the boat, pulls it onto the island. Old Man lived with more than a dozen other chimps on islands in the middle of the park, cut off from the rest of the park by deep, watery moats and fed by a keeper who would row out to the island with the day's meal. The primate was a 200-pound chimpanzee who was known to the staff as "The Old Man." Wolf was a 195-pound, 20-year-old beginning his second day on the job. The drive-through zoo on the far side of Loxahatchee is home to more than 900 animals - not one of them a gorilla.īut the close encounter isn't wholly unfamiliar to Terry Wolf either - only he was the one in the primate's grip.
LOXAHATCHEE - To kill or not to kill a 400-pound gorilla with a grip on a 4-year-old boy is one decision the former wildlife director at Lion Country Safari is grateful he never had to make.
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