What kind of relationship do you have with the gorillas?

What kind of relationship do you have with the gorillas?

Daniel Simmonds (Zookeeper) gives expert video advice on: Do the gorillas trust you?; Do you trust the gorillas?; How can you tell gorillas apart? and more...

I work with the gorillas every single day, and I see them all day, every day, so I have a very, very good relationship with the gorillas. And that's very important for a very intelligent animal like a gorilla, or indeed any primate species. But particularly gorillas are very charismatic and highly, highly intelligent primates, so it's important to have a good relationship with them. And that compares to working with a slightly less intelligent animal, like a camel, which just really sees me as someone that comes in, puts the food down and goes. The camel doesn't really see much else than that. But with the gorilla, the dynamics between gorilla and gorilla keeper is much more complex, and subsequently the relationship is very, very important.