Aug21
Claudio, Rest in Peace
Posted at 03:29 PM | Permalink
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Comments (19)
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Heartbroken, Gana kept carrying her dead baby on her back as she had when he was alive, looking back again and again in the hope of finding him recovered. She held her child up, desperately searching for signs of movement in his limp body, and sat cradling him.
Zoo visitors were visibly moved and many cried upon seeing Gana's grief. But no one who has been paying attention to animals should be surprised by the depth of emotion that Gana showed in her mourning. Animals feel pain, fear, anger, love, and grief. Mother cows bellow for their calves, who are taken away so that humans can drink the milk that they make solely to nourish their babies. Dogs, beavers, and monkeys take pity on orphaned animals and adopt them as their own. Animals—from pigs to porpoises—show concern for humans, too, by going to great lengths to rescue us from peril.
Yet people often look away from this glaring evidence of sentience. By convincing themselves that animals don't feel deeply—that they're "not like us"—humans have justified inflicting all kinds of horrors on animals. But if people torturing primates in laboratories or slaughtering gorillas in the Congo could look into Gana's shattered heart, they might wake up to the true cost of their actions.
Posted by Jeff Mackey
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Many people should really take a look at what they are doing with our gorgeous animals maybe that way their lives could really have common sense and a meaning worth fighting for.
Posted by: Lia Aguilar | August 21, 2008 04:23 PM
I can't help but wonder how many of those zoo visitors who were so touched by this mother's grief went home and ate a big chunk of flesh. It never ceases to amaze me how selfish and hypocritical human beings can be.
Posted by: Antigone1000 | August 21, 2008 07:36 PM
I am absolutely heartbroken for Gana. A mother should never have to grieve the death of her baby.
Wake up world !
Posted by: Joan | August 21, 2008 08:45 PM
MY HEART GOES OUT TO THIS WONDERFUL GORILLA. I HOPE YOU KEEP THIS PICTURE OF HER AND PUT HER ON A COVER OF ONE OF YOUR PAMPLETS OR LEAFLETS. THIS REALLY SHOWS THE LOVE ANIMALS HAVE AND DO SHOW. THEY HAVE FAMILYS LIKE WE DO. AND NO ONE SHOULD TREAT THEM BADLY. OR USE THEM ! LIKE THEY SAY... A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS! ( I'M TRYING NOT TO CRY) THIS PICTURE SHOULD BE ON EVERY LEAFLET TO HELP STOP ANIMAL TESTING.
Posted by: SHARI PEARSON | August 21, 2008 11:23 PM
This is heartbreaking! Animals are just as worthy of life as humans, more people should realise that. Just because they can't speak our language, many think they don't feel love, sadness, pain... The way some people treat animals is sickening (Chinese Fur Farms... Despicable!!!!!!) I believe in karma. And if someone who skins an animal alive gets cancer, there'll be no pity from me!
Posted by: Nikki | August 22, 2008 04:12 AM
Truly heartbreaking...I hope the visitors from this zoo do not forget that image...as Shari said above, a picture is worth a thousand words and this one should definitely be put on the for front for future animal protests.
Posted by: Courtney | August 22, 2008 08:53 AM
"I can't help but wonder how many of those zoo visitors who were so touched by this mother's grief went home and ate a big chunk of flesh. It never ceases to amaze me how selfish and hypocritical human beings can be."
RIGHTLY SAID!!!!
Posted by: Niranjan | August 22, 2008 09:48 AM
It breaks mt heart to see and hear that people still don't understand what they are doing when the harm animals. What makes them think that they have the right? Who left them in charge of cruelty? It makes me sick!
My heart goes out to Gana. God bless her.
Posted by: Kim P. | August 22, 2008 01:29 PM
The photo says it all.
Posted by: Maureen | August 23, 2008 09:11 PM
"I can't help but wonder how many of those zoo visitors who were so touched by this mother's grief went home and ate a big chunk of flesh. It never ceases to amaze me how selfish and hypocritical human beings can be."
Good point Antigone, spot on. It's a selfish money thing seeing that people can't equate their carelessness, selfishness and greed with real suffering and emotional loss.
Posted by: vegancoin | August 24, 2008 05:27 PM
Once again, it is evident that humans are not the most intelligent of all species. I shudder when anyone comments that humans are the most intelligent animal; we are quite simply the most ignorant, selfish, and greedy.
I am somewhat thankful that this baby gorilla did not have to endure a lifetime of imprisonment in the zoo.
Posted by: Michael Essi | August 24, 2008 07:14 PM
It was the compassion and empathy that both passenger pigeons and Carolina parakeets had that when any one of them was injured, they would all stay in the face of danger (rather than flee) to try to help their own kind that resulted in their extinctions because hunters used this to kill even more of them because they refused to leave their fellow birds in their time of need. Hunters would purposely injure, blind and nail a pigeon to a stool (stool pigeon) who would call out for help to other pigeons so that many others would come trying to help only to get shot and killed this way. Thus, inhumane hunters took advantage of birds that were humane enough to try to help each other in the face of danger. Both kinds of birds are now extinct because they were too kind to each other. A very sad true story.
Posted by: John Gilbert | August 24, 2008 07:39 PM
I am really grieved by the gorilla story. I know surely that animals do emote . Being a psychologist with special interest in animal behavior, I have always noted interesting mood changes and behaviour of animals.
I feel that people who think animals dont have emotion are runing away from facts or their own guilt. People say that at first humans should be cared for and animals are secondary. this becomes basis for animals going hungry. This is amounting to torture.
Also people grieving their pets death are loss of pets are looked at as though they are funny aliens! The remark made is " there are so many children dying , is an animal that important?"
I pity these people as they definitely are lacking in true humaneness!
Posted by: Helen | August 25, 2008 12:17 AM
I understand what you're saying and agree to an extent. I have heard of dogs becoming sad when ntheir playmate (another dog) dies. I don't think animals can truly process an emotion the way humans do. But I also don't think we will ever truly understand animals, their thinking, and such.
This story, however people view it, is heart breaking.
Posted by: brandie r | August 25, 2008 10:32 AM
Brandie R: I don't think you can ever truly process emotion as I do. Maybe I should take your rights away???
Posted by: Antigone1000 | August 25, 2008 11:10 AM
Gana, my deepest sympathy for the death of your baby, Claudio.
Posted by: lynda downie | August 26, 2008 01:40 AM
"It was the compassion and empathy that both passenger pigeons and Carolina parakeets had that when any one of them was injured, they would all stay in the face of danger (rather than flee) to try to help their own kind that resulted in their extinctions because hunters used this to kill even more of them because they refused to leave their fellow birds in their time of need. Hunters would purposely injure, blind and nail a pigeon to a stool (stool pigeon) who would call out for help to other pigeons so that many others would come trying to help only to get shot and killed this way. Thus, inhumane hunters took advantage of birds that were humane enough to try to help each other in the face of danger. Both kinds of birds are now extinct because they were too kind to each other. A very sad true story."
Thank you for that true story. An honest look into the empty-headed reasoning, stark cruelty, cold-hearted emotions and psychotic destructive behavior that is all too often practiced by some human beings, and often defines their social mindset. Very sad and very tragic.
Posted by: vegancoin | August 27, 2008 11:20 AM
"It never ceases to amaze me how selfish and hypocritical human beings can be."
You are being hypocritical in your very statement.
Anger and hatred is never the way to reach anyone you're trying to convince their way is not the better way. You simply can't fight anger and hatred with anger and hatred.
PETA's message is a good one, but is sadly lost on many in the delivery.
Posted by: sub080808 | August 29, 2008 05:28 PM
sub080808: How is my statement hypocritical?? If a person can empathize with one animal, but still eat another animal, that person IS a hypocrite. Same as the person who berates another for mistreating those animals(dogs, eg) about whom he cares, while eating those animals about whom he does not care (cows, eg). Far too many people spout off about cruelty to animals while practicing it themselves. If that is not hypocrisy, explain what it is.
Posted by: antigone1000 | September 5, 2008 09:43 AM