What happens when you make eye-to-eye contact with a gorilla? As it turns out, it gets threatened enough to want to attack you, just like an unfortunate woman found out at the Rotterdam Zoo. To keep the same accident from happening again, the facility is providing guests with the Bokito Kijker, a pair of glasses intended to fool animals into thinking you’re looking somewhere else while you’re staring at them.
In case you’re wondering, the name translates to English as the Bokito Viewer. Bokito, by the way, is the male Western gorilla who escaped and attacked a female visitor at the facility back in 2007.
The Bokito Kijker is a stealthy piece of eyewear, with an image of human eyes looking off to one side printed on the body. It comes with two peekholes, one for each eye, so you can actually look at the gorilla, all without arousing the animal’s survival instincts.
Donated to the Rotterdam Zoo by a local health insurance company, the glasses aren’t only effective at keeping Bokito calm, it’s impressively goofy too. Seriously, watching groups of people wearing the kooky specs looks as much fun as observing the wild animals in captivity. Plus, I bet it works great for ogling sexy women without creeping anyone out.
[via Buzzfeed]