For some totally bizarre reason, I forgot to mention yesterday the tragic news that Yeboah, London Zoo's new young male gorilla, dies on Thursday while undergoing treatment in the animal hospital.
Everyone is gutted. They had such high hopes that he would settle in, become a silverback, and start a new colony. It's such a tragedy. There are so few of these precious creatures left in the world, and thanks to our hunger for new mobile phones, and our failure to recycle old ones, the Congo jungle they rely on is disappearing at an alarming rate to supply the elements needed to enable us to blabber about nonsense at every opportunity, when we used to wait till we go home and used the landline.
We are slowing killing our world. To be honest Val, I don't own a cell phone. I don't want to feel that attached and that accessible. Such a waste to lose such a magnificient animal.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear of this tragic loss. Very bad news, indeed.
ReplyDeleteIronically enough, as I read this post, I was just watching an episode of L&O: SVU, where much of the subject matter involved mass rape (and forced marriage to terrorists) as an act of war in the Congo ... war over the mines containing the very elements you spoke of, Val. So there are two kinds of ongoing rape in progress ... the rape of the environment and the rape of women and young girls with no human rights at all.
ReplyDeleteHow old was he and what is a 'silverback'?
ReplyDeleteJoJo, I can't believe you don't know what a silverback is. You don't watch enough nature TV! It's an adult male gorilla, the leader of his group. His back turns silver when he becomes the dominant male. (Or Alpha male, as we say when we talk of Vincent...)
ReplyDeleteYeboah was just 12. He could have lived to 40 or 50.