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i-cb130990cdd93363a671b44fe15fe789-baby_gorilla.jpg

That’s a baby gorilla holding hands with a worker at the Lefini Faunal Reserve. It’s a touching picture (and there’s a much larger version available if you click on the image), but there’s an ugly story behind it. The gorilla is a “bush-meat orphan”.

“Bush-meat orphan.” That’s a phrase of understated unpleasantness.

Comments

  1. Mary says

    Animal Planet has been running a show called “Growing up Gorilla”. It’s about a national park in Cameroon that has been set up as an orphanage for these young gorillas. For anyone who is charmed by this photo – you’ll love the show.

  2. No One of Consequence says

    The Iraqi’s have a different version of Bush-meat orphans.

    oops, was that out loud.

  3. hoody says

    Bshmt. nt-vry-wll-knwn nd vry nfrtnt blck-mrkt (nd smtms vn lgl) ndstry tht trgts frcn wldlf.

    Gd fnd n crtczng t.

    nd vn bttr n tlkng bt smthng rtnl fr chng.

  4. Karley says

    I imagine most creationists who are offended at the thought of being related to apes, or just can’t see the similarity, have never actually meet apes or even seen real ones in any meaningful ways. They’ve just glanced at Discovery channel specials and filled in the blanks with pop culture conceptions of apes- banana-eating, poo-flinging beasts.
    I think that images like that, make the connection pretty much undeniable. Look at the fingertips! Sheesh.

  5. junk science says

    Nice to know there’s some cruelty in the world distant and unthreatening enough for hoody to oppose.

  6. jba says

    I saw a very good Nature documentary on chimps that had some great footage of a baby chimp behaving almost exactly like a baby human. It was very well done (and adorable). I wish there was some way to show it to all the ID people who claim we arent related to apes, it might make them think.

  7. jba says

    I just said “it might make them think”

    On second thought, it probably wouldnt. But its worth a shot!

  8. fusilier says

    If the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence and yet who employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.
    T. H. Huxley
    (But you all knew that.)

    fusilier
    James 2:24

  9. says

    “Bush-meat orphan.” That’s a phrase of understated unpleasantness.

    Nothing understated about it. That phrase is just plain horrible.

    Oh, and that’s a great picture. Karley, I was particularly struck by the fingertips too – I’d never seen them that close up, but they look amazingly human.

  10. Berlzebub says

    Ummm… I hope fusilier’s comment was in jest. Because, as I understand evolution, modern apes are more akin to cousins. Although, we should have an ancestory (i.e. greatgreatgreatgreat…grandfather/grandmother) that was the fork of our ancestory.

    I do have a fundie uncle who would blow a gasket at that thought. Which, makes family gatherings interesting. He’s never liked how my parents raised me to never follow blindly. He’s especially upset that I married a Roman Catholic, since he’s a Pentecostal. To keep the peace, I’ve kept my atheism to myself. Although, I don’t hesitate to point out fallacies when I hear them.

    -Berlzebub

  11. says

    “If you think that the distance Christ had to come to take the likeness of man is not so great as that from man to gorilla, then you don’t know men. Or gorillas. Or God.”

    from Dian Fossey’s eulogy (but I don’t know who gave it)

  12. says

    Berlzebub – first, fusilier’s comment was quoting Thomas Huxley. Second, while modern apes are not our direct ancestors, there is no question that we have an ape species as a direct ancestor, so I don’t see the problem with Huxley’s statement.

  13. Berlzebub says

    Jane. Yes, I got all of that. The biblical scripture at the end is what threw me. At least, until I looked it up.

    Oh, and I don’t have a problem with the quote either. I’d much rather have a miserable ape as a relation than some of the ones I currently do.

    -Berlzebub

  14. hoody says

    s thr prgrm fr dsmvwlng? r dsd PZ sbscrb t th d tht th Lw f Dmnshd tlty s n t b gnrd?

    Lk lgc?

  15. hoody says

    Nice to know there’s some cruelty in the world distant and unthreatening enough for hoody to oppose.

    Rght. Jst lk y gys “rn’t thrtnd” by rlgn. . .why ls spnd s mch tm tryng t xcrt t?

  16. says

    When I was younger, I was so disturbed by the bush meat trade that I used to want to go to africa dressed in jungle camo, carry an MP-10 submachine gun, and just go to war rambo style on the people hunting apes in the jungles. I’ve more recently tamed my desires to fixing the social situations that lead people to see it as a necessary source of protein… I.E. setting up better crop systems or working to combat overpopulation. But still, hearing about people slaughtering our genetic cousins like this really gets the blood boiling.

  17. thwaite says

    This topic is apt for the Sean Henry thread also (but that’s too busy now). Sean differentiated sharply between ‘us humans’ and ‘animals’. But we share with our fellow primates not only anatomy and physiology, but emotional lives and some parts of our cognitive worlds – including art and simple use of language . Thus evolutionists find it natural (sic) to extend empathy to non-humans; in contrast a Christian writer such as Bush’s former speechwriter Matthew Sculley has to appeal to mercy from fellow Christians to temper their DOMINION over non-humans in factory farms and commercialized ‘hunting’ (an excellent review of this book by Christopher Hitchins in full form appeared in Atlantic Monthly).

    Darwin knew and studied these behavioral commonalities. His book THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMAL emphasizes that human and other primate faces possess comparable musculature, though it’s also clear that human expressivity is more behaviorally developed. He also noted chimpanzee politics a century before De Waal, and that virtues of character (leadership, fairness, trustworthiness) are observable in primate groups. Darwin’s unpublished notebooks (now available even online) sketch, in his ‘m’ and ‘n’ series , many such observations, e.g.
    The young Ourang in Zool. Gardens pouts. partly out [of] displeasure (& partly out of I do not know what when it looked at the glass) when pouting protrudes its lips into point.–Man, though he does not pout, pushes out both lips in contempt, disgust & defiance.– different from sneer–
    Plato /Erasmus/ says in Phaedo that our “imaginary ideas” arise from the preexistence of the soul, are not derivable from experience.–read monkeys for preexistence.

    The modern perspective on primate is most accessibly and helpfully presented by DeWaal in various books such as GOOD NATURED; OUR INNER APE; TREE OF ORIGIN; PEACEMAKING AMONG PRIMATES, etc.

    For the study of animal behavior in an evolutionary context (“ethology”) the first (and so far only) Nobel Prize was in 1973, for studies in behavior inheritance. Tinbergen’s acceptance speech empasized human medical applications for the study of autism, which has long been seen as how a simpler non-human sees the world. This diminishment in empathy is variable in human autistics, and the high-functioning (Asperger’s) autistic Temple Grandin in her ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION articulates a unusually sophisticated empathy for non-human animals! Which she uses as a professional animal scientist to design more-‘humane’ slaughter facilities for cattle throughout North America…

    As for other primates and language, although she can edge into woo-woo territory, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s book “KANZI : the ape at the brink of the human mind” is well worth reading, and the en.wikipedia page for ‘Kanzi’ provides links to more current material.

    Sorry for the length here. It’s something I’ve been interested in for a while.

  18. csams says

    I’m kinda new here, but has hoody been struck in the head? Or a severe keyboard malfunction?

  19. says

    csams, being a frequent troll here, hoody is subject to regular disemvoweling (a term which originated on the blog “Making Light”), where the owner of a blog will simply remove all the vowels from someone’s comments, leaving a sad carcass of a comment.

    People who really, really want to can still work out most of what was intended, but mostly this causes trolls to be ignored.

  20. anomalous4 says

    I really like the way the “Growing Up [Animal]” series calls attention to the plight of orphaned animals and to the dedication of the people who rescue and raise them. IMO, it should be required viewing for any kid old enough to know what an animal is.

  21. Diego says

    I have a friend who did some field work in Africa. The pygmies who were hired to help them kept bringing bush meat to camp for the researchers and they kept telling the pygmies not to bring game. Each time they would bring something different thinking that surely THIS particular animal didn’t count. And each time the researchers would have to say “No, no duiker either. And also no monkey, or pangolin or any other game of any kind. Nothing that you have to go into the rainforest to shoot and bring back.” And each time the pygmies would think, “Oh I see, but surely they can’t mean. . .”

  22. bernarda says

    I am all in favor of strong protection for primates, but the “bush-meat orphan” doesn’t shock me. We should remember where we all came from.

    We can hardly apply western industrial countries standards(of living)to people living in a much “simpler” environment.

    You might say that I am bashing the fantastic euro-american capitalist cultural system which has so well provided for us. Well, you are right. I am.

    If we don’t want them to kill primates to eat them, we should stop oppressing them and keeping them at subsistence level.

  23. csams says

    Ahhhh, thank you Mr. Martin, I feared it was some bastardized chile of l33t speak I have encountered before. *sigh* My head hurts lol.

  24. Pygmy Loris says

    I’d like to point out that the bushmeat trade is not only for subsistence and that many families engage in it because of the opportunities for making a decent living. Bushmeat is seen in many countries as a delicacy. People will pay more for smoked chimpanzee than they will for beef or chicken.

    Also, the main cause of increased bushmeat being brought to market is logging. Logging roads allow access to the deep forest where may sought after species have retreated. The bushmeat hunters then hitch rides back to town on logging trucks. It’s a prefect set up for the annihilation of several species. Mining and other activities in the forest also contribute to this problem.

    Oh, and there’s a militia group from Wyoming that goes to the CAR to hunt poachers. The militia members have permission from the leaders of the CAR to shoot poachers (usually from Sudan) on sight. What I’ve heard implies they’ve been rather effective in limiting the bushmeat trade in the areas they patrol.

  25. says

    Pygmy Loris: do you have a reference for that statement about the militia groups hunting poachers? It sounds a bit urban-legendish, but I’d be tickled to find that it was true.

  26. says

    That is a sweet photo.

    I just found out that one of our docents spent two years studying orangutans in Borneo and was the subject of a photo essay in Life Magazine in 1972. (One of the images in the photo essay, in which she gazes beatifically upward at the apes, was “appropriated” by the McGovern for President campaign and made to look as if she were gazing at the candidate!)

  27. Pygmy Loris says

    Dr. Memory,
    here, is a National Geographic article about the group. I first heard about them from a colleague who studies primates.

  28. Pygmy Loris says

    Dr. Memory,

    Perhaps “hunting” poachers is not the right term, but from what I’ve heard about the group that’s essentially what they do.

  29. Johnny Vector says

    While we’re on the subject of the closeness of apes to humans…

    Mandara, a female ape at the National Zoo, taught my wife to say “hello” when she was volunteering as an interpreter (that’s what they call what would be a docent at a museum). Mandara would open her mouth at my wife whenever they met, and eventually she responded in kind, at which point Mandara gave a satisfied head nod and went about her business. (This is all through the glass, by the way.) This continued from then through the rest of the time she was volunteering. As far as we know Mandara didn’t do that with anyone else.

    But wait, here’s the best part of the story: After not having visited the zoo for maybe a year and a half, we went to the great ape house as regular visitors. Mandara was inside, just chilling and checking out the crowd on our side of the glass. Scanned past us and then did the most amazing double-take, followed by her usual open-mouth hello. As I hadn’t known my wife when she was volunteering, I didn’t know the backstory. So it was really freaky until she explained that was Mandara’s greeting for her.

    Anyone who can give a shout-out like that to an old friend is not the kind of animal I can feel comfortable eating.

  30. suirauqa says

    I am very curious to know more about the fingertips of the baby gorilla (I looked at the larger picture at the NG website). Is this the normal pattern of colorization of the baby gorillas – I mean, the tip of the digits, and nails as well, colorize (melanize?) last, along with hair growth? The thumb of the baby appears to be dark colored. Does someone know more about this?

    On a related note, the NY Times carried a story today about how Ebola is ravaging gorilla colonies in Congo. There are vaccines available that may help; these have worked in the laboratory in primate models, and they may be used in the wild “by injecting the animals with darts or putting an oral vaccine in food. By tracking the spread of the virus and vaccinating animals in its path, it might be possible to stop outbreaks”. However, the researchers working in the field are apprehensive about the feasibility of doing this, because there may be “miles of red tape to cut through, involving various conservation groups, donors and governments.”

    If I remember correctly, Dr. Jane Goodall, the pioneer of biological research in gorillas, once came out strongly against in vivo research, particularly those involving primates. This may not be the best time, but someone should probably remind her that without primate research, these vaccines – that can potentially save the gorillas – would not even have been possible.

  31. thwaite says

    Thanks Pygmy for posting that story of the vigilantes against CAR poachers.

    My respect for National Geographic is rebuilding. Its October issue was about the US National Parks, a succinct and compelling survey of the tension between conservation and ‘enjoyment by the people’ since the Republicans took administration. One memorable summary of the conservationist problem which applies equally well to conserving primates, our closest relatives: “Every conservation victory is temporary. Every loss is permanent.”

  32. kurage says

    Has anybody here read “Eating Apes” by Dale Peterson? It’s an excellently done (and, of course, brutally depressing) look at the factors driving the trade in ape meat, and the huge threat this trade poses not only to endangered species, but also to human health. (Given that apes are very closely related to us, the likelihood of zoonotic disease is upsettingly high. It is apparently quite possible that AIDS crossed the species barrier thanks to the nasty practice of eating primates.)

    As for the vigilante militia from Wyoming – while I did think for a brief, giddy moment “Aha! Time for a change of career plans!” I think the problem is more complex than that. Much of the demand for bushmeat (not necessarily apes, which are regarded as something of a delicacy) is fueled by hunger, pure and simple. Obviously, simply allowing bushmeat hunting to continue unchecked is not the answer, but shooting at hungry people who have no other source of protein is not my idea of a good time.

    >>>I have a friend who did some field work in Africa. The pygmies who were hired to help them kept bringing bush meat to camp for the researchers and they kept telling the pygmies not to bring game. Each time they would bring something different thinking that surely THIS particular animal didn’t count. And each time the researchers would have to say “No, no duiker either. And also no monkey, or pangolin or any other game of any kind. Nothing that you have to go into the rainforest to shoot and bring back.” And each time the pygmies would think, “Oh I see, but surely they can’t mean. . .”<<< On a lighter note, this is _exactly_ what it was like to be a vegetarian in Japan.

  33. Andreas B. says

    kurage: The National Geographic article says the militia is hunting poachers illegaly crossing the border from Sudan. These poachers aren’t getting bush meat to eat but to sell it.

    Quite the contrary, by destroying the eco systems the poachers are robbing rural Africans their food sources, as the article says.

  34. Caledonian says

    If I remember correctly, Dr. Jane Goodall, the pioneer of biological research in gorillas, once came out strongly against in vivo research, particularly those involving primates. This may not be the best time, but someone should probably remind her that without primate research, these vaccines – that can potentially save the gorillas – would not even have been possible.

    Just think of all the lives that could be saved if we experimented openly on African children. Imagine the benefit of a truly effective vaccine for AIDS – isn’t that worth a few thousand lives?

  35. kurage says

    Andreas B:

    Okay, yeah. I plead guilty in the first degree to not having read the article before opening my big trap. But on the bright side, now I _can_ make that career change with no guilt whatsoever! Time to start shopping for some khakis!

    (My more general statement about the need to address the problem of bushmeat hunting driven by genuine need for protein still stands, though.)

  36. says

    Johnny Vector:

    Mandara, a female ape at the National Zoo, taught my wife to say “hello” when she was volunteering as an interpreter (that’s what they call what would be a docent at a museum). … [snip] … So it was really freaky until she explained that was Mandara’s greeting for her.

    Thanks, Johnny, that’s a great story. What kind of ape is Mandara?

    I lived in Fairfax County for most of the first 18 years of my life, and I miss the National Zoo more than anything else in the area. I can’t count the number of hours I spent as a kid wandering gape-mouthed through that place, just drinking it all in.

  37. jc. says

    Not wishing to trivialize this thread but “bush meat orphans” sounds like what our country`s done in Iraq.

  38. lo says

    I hate to point it out but doesn`t this picture proof that apes are the seed of evil just like written down in the book of truth – the bible, somewhere between the AT-god`s genocidal babbling- transcending back and forth between psychopathy and sociopathy and the paragraphs of the whore of babylon.

    I mean this ape is literally stretching out the middle finger of this unaware human. It`s a clear indicator of the ulterior motives of this ape.

    I really hate to point it out to you – but he (damn did i just personify the ape, and in a way acknowledge a certain parity) is nothing short of showing us the middle finger, and if that weren`t bad enough uses this unaware human as a pawn for his evil doings. Just like the economy uses bush.

    But other than that, it`s really a neat picture. If only our unparalleled human ability of imagination wouldn`t go haywire at any cue our brain can find in any instance whatsoever – to such an extend that some uneducated people find serenity and safety in religion, and even more so that uneducated people find pleasure in pointing out that there are religious scientists, totally mixing up religiousness with spirituality, which certainly isn`t helped by those very own scientists who claim to be religious – yet are actually outright spiritual and nowhere near fostering dogmatic, thought-ceasing religious believes.

    And then there are those religious nuts, who wanna call themselves scientists, yet have hardly contributed much more to science than the minimal requirements in order to finish one`s academic career, and try to water down the once rigidly established lines between religion and science.

  39. demallien says

    I don’t know about anyone else, but the day that I discovered that chimps and gorillas could have proper conversations with us by using sign language was the day that I decided that they deserve the same protections that we offer humans. Infact, I can’t find a single good reason not to consider them people. They have feelings, and can express them, they think, they argue, and sulk, and fight, and form friendships, and play.

    Unfortunately for them, we offer humans in Africa next to no protections…

    We do need to do more to protect thses

  40. Johnny Vector says

    What kind of ape is Mandara?

    Gorilla. Sorry, I meant to put that in there. This is why I don’t blog; it takes me days to get a couple paragraphs right.

    And yeah, the National Zoo is pretty great. And still free!

  41. suirauqa says

    If I remember correctly, Dr. Jane Goodall, the pioneer of biological research in gorillas, once came out strongly against in vivo research, particularly those involving primates. This may not be the best time, but someone should probably remind her that without primate research, these vaccines – that can potentially save the gorillas – would not even have been possible.

    Caledonian says: Just think of all the lives that could be saved if we experimented openly on African children. Imagine the benefit of a truly effective vaccine for AIDS – isn’t that worth a few thousand lives?

    Caledonian, are you being intentionally obtuse or facetious? Animal experimentation isn’t a free-for-all, random, unstructured business as you seem to think. There are very strict rules and regulations governing in vivo experiments; also, at every step, there is close scrutiny to see if the number of animals to be used can be minimized without jeopardizing the validity of the study. Without animal experimentation, there is simply no way of finding out anything about physiological phenomena, in health as well as in disease.

    If the AIDS-affected African children are to be a part of a structured clinical trial, so be it. Even implying – as you glibly did – that this is the equivalent of taking a random child or children and experimenting on them is crazy talk. There have been clinical trials involving HIV positive children, not only in Africa but in other countries as well, and these trials have enhanced the breadth of medical knowledge about HIV and moved the researching community a step towards finding a solution. Though solutions are still grossly inadequate seen in the light of fresh cases, do you have any idea how many lives, including those of the African children, have been saved because of the available HIV medications? Do you know that vertical transmission rate in Africa has been drastically reduced following the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy (HAART)? Do you know that only through these clinical trials – that you deride – have come vaccines that can reduce the mother-to-child transmission through breastfeeding?

    The researchers – that I mentioned in my original post – could speculate about the positive outcome of an Ebola vaccine in gorillas, only because of encouraging results of the vaccine efficacy in primate studies. Without these studies, those gorillas would be SOL, with nothing in sight. Which is why I maintain that opposition to in vivo research is shortsighted and erroneous.

  42. Pygmy Loris says

    suirauqa,

    First of all, Jane Goodall pioneered long term studies of wild chimpanzees not gorillas. Dian Fossey did the first long-term gorilla studies.
    Second of all, Goodall has pushed for humane treatment of medical animals (particularly primates), not the elimination of medical testing. Primates are extremely intelligent social animals whose treatment prior to humane movements caused horrible psychotic behaviors. Think how you would feel locked in a 4ftx4ft room with no one to see or talk to.

  43. BlueMako says

    “Is it just me or does the idea of eating apes seem totally cannibalistic?”
    It’s not just you.

    When I was a boy, I once watched two young gorillas playing on a mound of dirt. One of them, after driving the other one off the mound, stood up and clapped its hands. Any doubts I had about their relationship to us vanished then…

  44. suirauqa says

    Pygmy Loris, I stand corrected. Thank you for calling me on that. I mixed up between Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. However, I still have concerns about Dr. Goodall’s position on animal experimentation. After your comment, I went back to Dr. Goodall’s website and re-read her statement about experimentation with primates. She is a very respected researcher, and I have the highest regards for her, and think that her amazing work with chimpanzees has taught the rest of us a new respect for all living beings. Which is why I thought that a statement coming from her as a scientist would be more circumspect and considered. Instead, she comes off as emotionally biased towards the non-human primates (perhaps obviously) to the exclusion of everything else.

    Particularly when she talks about alternatives to animal testing, she does not at all touch upon the fact that there are physiological systems that cannot be studied without animal experimentation. Her statements and her open letters (one example here) have been quoted in countless fora which seek to put a blanket ban on all animal experimentation.

    I am sorry, but I am passionate about this. I am an immunologist; I do in vivo research. And everyday, in so many ways, I have to face prejudices against my profession from people who find a great deal of consonance with statements such as Dr. Goodall’s, but who are generally ignorant of the processes involved in medical research. I loathe being made out an unthinking, cruel villain, who enjoys inflicting pain upon lower forms of life (and therefore, indulges in animal experimentation). It is not only I who have faced such repugnant ideas, and not all of them come from ignorant people either. Scientists who don’t do in vivo work generally hold similar opinions.

    And I know how far from the truth these opinions are. We do animal experiments, within strictly defined rules, and only as much as is necessary. But when respected scientists like Dr. Goodall make sweeping statements to the contrary, that hurts.

  45. Steve B says

    Dian Fossey’s Eulogy

    December 31, 1985

    Pastor Elton Wallace

    “Last week the world did honor to a long-ago event that changed its history–the coming of the Lord to earth. We see at our feet here a parable of that magnificent condescension–Dian Fossey, born to a home of comfort and privilege that she left by her own choice to live among a race faced with extinction….She will lie now among those with whom she lived, and among whom she died. And if you think that the distance Christ had to come to take the likeness of Man is not as great as that from man to gorilla, then you don’t know men. Or gorillas. Or God.”