Bahati, a 31-year-old male had just moved to the Kansas City Zoo in February. Last Wednesday, he was climbing in a tree when attempted to jump and was accosted by a couple of unfriendly chimps and he fell to the ground. He suffered internal injuries during the fall but might have survived if a group of chimps hadn’t attacked him, leading to his death.
Shocking video from just seconds after Bahati fell from the tree shows some of the dozen other chimps surrounded his body and launching a vicious attack.
The video, posted online by frequent zoo visitor Harry Miller, lasts about one minute. During the short clip that he shared online, children can be heard asking their parents what is going on inside the enclosure.
‘Look at the baby being like “don’t hit my friend”,’ a child is heard saying at the start of the footage, as a smaller chimp ran around the back of the group.
‘They’re biting him… why would they tackle the guy that fell,’ another child said in the video.
‘Mean monkeys… they should help him,’ the first child then said.
Miller said he heard a noise coming from the enclosure and then saw a scene that was like a real life Planet of the Apes fight – ahead of the new movie’s release this Friday.
‘I heard the chimps making a racket even before I got to the enclosure… Several of them raced up one of the trees, it looked like they were fighting back and forth,’ he told KWCH.
‘Of course these things happen in the wild and we don’t know about it, but when it’s there in a controlled environment it’s a bit different to observe.’
The zoo released a video statement after the incident last week.
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