Gorilla encounter goes viral

A video of a Jasper man’s interactions with a gorilla at the Louisville Zoo has been splashed across the world on TV and social media today.

The first we saw of the video and story was in the Daily Mail out of the UK. Then, the Today show ran the video in a segment this morning. Most news outlets are running the segment featured by a videographer named Paul Ross on his YouTube account.

“We had no idea that video would spread all over like that,” said Vicki Mehringer today.

Vicki, her daughter Brooke, grandson Kieric Harmon and son Dylan decided to visit the Louisville Zoo last Saturday. “We just thought it would be a nice thing to do and we thought Kieric (who is 13 months old) would enjoy it,” Vicki explained.

Then, while viewing the gorilla exhibit, Vicki took a photo with her phone and one of the gorillas became very interested. The gorilla, named Jelani, came over towards Dylan and gestured at his phone. So Dylan decided to show Jelani some pictures on it.

For the next 30 minutes the two sat together separated by the clear partition as Dylan shared photos of other gorillas he found on Google. In the video Vicki shot, viewers can see Jelani tap the glass as if to tell Dylan to move on to another photo.

Dylan, who graduated from Jasper High School in 2015, was too shy to be interviewed for this story, but Vicki explained he thought the experience was amazing. “This gorilla and Dylan were actually looking each other in the eyes,” she said. “And then, when Dylan got up to leave, the gorilla got up and walked away from the crowd and then sat down and crossed his arms like he was upset.”