Binti Jua became a hero in 1996 when she rescued a 3-year-old boy who fell into her gorilla enclosure at the Brookfield Zoo outside of Chicago
She safely scooped the boy up and delivered him to zookeepers, who were waiting at the door to her habitat
Binti Jua is still alive today, greeting visitors at the Brookfield Zoo
It’s been nearly three decades since the world’s hairiest hero burst into public consciousness.
In 1996, a 3-year-old boy tumbled 24 feet into a gorilla enclosure after sliding through a barrier at a Chicago-area zoo. What happened next was as surprising as it was endearing.
Video from the Brookfield Zoo’s Western Lowland Gorilla Pit showed a then-8-year-old gorilla named Binti Jua making her way to the unconscious tot. Onlookers feared the worst, wondering what the 160-lb. great ape would do to the tiny intruder. Binti Jua, who had her own 17-month-old baby clinging to her back, stunned everyone as she carefully picked the lifeless boy up around his waist, cradled him in her arms and carried him to a service door where zoo officials awaited. Upon gingerly putting the child down, she scurried away, Sondra Catzen, a zoo spokeswoman, told the Chicago Tribune in 1996.
At the time of the incident, six other gorillas were in the exhibit, and zookeepers used a hose to keep them at bay.
The incident garnered international headlines and has been discussed ever since, particularly 20 years later at a Cincinnati Zoo, when another child fell into a gorilla enclosure — that time, though, things took a much darker turn, as zoo officials shot and killed the 450-lb. gorilla named Harambe, who was seen dragging the child.
Whereas Harambe was male, Binti Jua was female, which could have factored into the differing results. In the year that followed, many attributed Binti Jua’s actions to her “motherly instinct.”
“She was somewhat protective, too. Part of the video, she takes the child and sort of turns a shoulder to the other gorillas,” zoo worker Jay Peterson told CBS News in 2011.
In addition, zookeepers noted that Binti Jua, whose name means “daughter of sunshine” in Swahili, was born in captivity and raised by humans, so seeing the person in her midst wasn’t completely foreign.
The boy, who’s never been publicly named, spent four days in the hospital, but only suffered a broken hand and facial cuts.
In the wake of the five-minute incident, Binti Jua became an ever greater attraction at the zoo and was showered with gifts and letters from around the world. The Chicago Tribune reported that several people offered money to adopt Binti Jua, and an Illinois grocer gifted her 25 lbs. of bananas as a means of thanks.
Binti Jua, who arrived at the Brookfield Zoo in 1991 on a breeding loan from the San Francisco Zoo, still lives in Brookfield’s gorilla exhibit. In March, she celebrated her 37th birthday.
According to National Geographic, Western Lowland gorillas typically live to 35 years old in the wild, but usually live longer under human care. They are listed as a “critically endangered species.” The World Wildlife Fund reports that the gorilla’s numbers have declined by more than 60% over the last 20 to 25 years due to poaching and disease.
