But when humans kill an animal, even though it is equally disturbing news, it is never the top news. And we call it a killing, not murder. It doesn't become a gripping story because there is never a mystery as to who might have committed the crime. The intent of the killing is either to use the meat as food or to get the body parts like fur and tusks. Sometimes people kill a wild animal to safeguard their property. Whatever the motive there is always sufficient evidence available at the crime scene that point to the culprit.
But in the death of the 7 mountain Gorillas in the Central African game park, none of the above reasons fit. And to this day, a year after the first three Gorillas were shot dead, the authorities are clueless as to why the blameless big apes were gunned down or who was behind the ghastly act. Perhaps that is the reason why the July 2008 issue of the National Geographic magazine has carried the story with the caption, "Who Murdered the Virunga Gorillas?"
Virunga National park is the oldest national Park in Africa. It is a sanctuary to rare animals like the Okapi (a Zebra-Giraffe combination), the Ruwenzori duiker (a small antelope) and many wintering Siberian birds. But its biggest tourist attraction is the endangered, mountain Gorillas. Virunga National Park is home to about 200 of the roughly 720 mountain gorillas left on Earth.
The Gorillas here are so used to human presence that the families just go about their business even when people stand around and watch. So much so, that, the Park rangers refer to them affectionately as "our brothers".
On the night of July 22 of 2007, the rangers at the nearby barracks heard gun shots. The next morning they found three female gorillas of a single family shot to death. An infant Gorilla was trembling nearby. The following day the patriarch of the group was found dead with a bullet in his chest. Three weeks later the body of another female was discovered.
Just a month earlier, two females and an infant from another group had been attacked. One of the females was shot execution style in the back of the head; her infant, still alive, was clinging to her dead mother's breast.
The event sent shock waves throughout the world. Concerned groups and individuals set out to Africa to find out who was responsible for the cowardly act.
It was clearly not the poachers. Because, poachers who hunt gorillas kidnap the infants and cut off the heads and hands of the adults-to be sold on the black market. But in Virunga, the animals were left to rot where they fell, and the motherless infants left to starve to death.
The prime suspect has been the charcoal mafia which is engaged in the business of illegally cutting down the trees for making charcoal. These people have enmity with the forest rangers whose duty it is to guard the trees. The charcoal men probably killed the Gorillas to get the rangers a bad name. Or their line of thinking could be that if the Gorillas disappeared, tourists would disappear too. With no money to pay the guards the forest would be left unprotected.
It is a shame that that such heartless people are also human beings like us. Do you think the intelligent Gorillas would still like to be called as "our brothers"?
