Visitors to Manhattan’s Museum of Natural History were split Sunday over whether to return “John Daniel,’’ the stuffed gorilla, to Britain.
As reported in Sunday’s Post, the once-famous great ape was raised like a human in Britain in the early 1900s before being sold in 1921 to the circus in the United States, where he soon died.
Residents in Gloucestershire, England, now want his body returned to them, even temporarily.
“We need to keep it in the museum so everyone can see it and learn,’’ objected Michael McGrinder, 6, of Queens.
But John Wiley of Manhattan thought the remains should return home.
“Maybe I’m a pragmatist, but it’s a dead gorilla,” the 36-year-old pilot said. “If the Brits are so upset about it, we can give it back and just make another one.”
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