Sometimes you really don’t know what to say…
Horror as gorillas slaughtered – Metro.co.uk: Slaughtered gorillas lie tied to stretchers in the first pictures released of the killings.
The rare animals, which lived in a national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, may have been killed to warn off conservationists who want to save the region’s rainforests – the gorillas’ natural habitat.
Experts say poachers would have sold the bodies.
The last line is as comforting as a kick in the balls. :(
We need to start cloning Gorillas (and other near extinct) animals!
jesus fucking christ man……………..
Sold them for what? What are they used for?
I don’t get it at all.
It would be cheaper to just kill off the idiots that took this approach.
The Bush administration should support these Gorillas by sending them weapons and military advisers. Freedom for sentient animals everywhere!
I think it’s disturbing that rampant violence in television and video games has allowed these Congolese people to be so desensitized to violence that they will kill defenseless gorillas to try to make a point.
My wife took me to Rwanda for my 40th birthday to see these beautiful animals. On my birthday, I actually got to witness a mating. I have not heard from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund of any baby born to that group 7-9 months later. So, I probably did not witness the creation of a new mountain gorilla on my 40th birthday.
However, after 5 days of trekking to see these amazing creatures and looking at a picture of a 2 year old on my wall right now, I can’t even begin to tell you how heartbreaking this is.
Here’s a link to the website if this has encouraged anyone to donate or at least read about what they do and what they are doing for an orphaned baby from this horrible mass murder.
http://www.gorillafund.org/
#5 – Improbus,
I agree. Support our right to arm bears (and other non-humans).
#7, I’m all for gorillas having the right to bear arms… just as soon as they possess the intelligence to create them.
#6 – “rampant violence in television and video games” – gawd I hope that’s sarcasm….
Violence, lawlessness and a complete disregard for life. These concepts are nothing new on the African continent.
#8 – Sea Lawyer,
Why? You think they’d be any worse with them than we are?
#10 – gquaglia,
Or on the North American continent or any other that has humans.
I don’t get it, and that article sucks. How does killing animals warn off conservationists? Why didn’t the DRC kill conservationists? I would think that a government systematically killing an endangered animal would increase conservationist action. Am I just reading the article wrong?
Save it, Scott.
Trying to equate the civilized world to the barbarity that is normal in sub-Saharan Africa is Political Correctness of the most ludicrous sort.
Today there is one place on Earth like no other, where wholesale genocide and human slavery are still widely practiced – Africa.
Try comparing the number of people who spoke up about the Hutus and Tutsis slaughtering over a million in 1994 alone to the number who screeched about Imus making a stupid wisecrack on the radio.
Tell ya what – let’s just pretend everything in Africa is wonderful and America is the land that holds the patent on enslaving and slaughtering black people.
Oops, we’re already been doing that for a long time. Nem’mind.
#5 – Improbus – The Bush administration should support these Gorillas by sending them weapons and military advisers.
Sounds like a good idea. But unfortunately Bush will pull the conclusion that in order to save the gorillas, he’ll need to invade Iran… I’m sure James Hill can find some logic in that conclusion.
I’m with James Hill on this one, except that under this administration people are very very expensive to kill.
#15, #16 – So lets solve all of our problems together.
1. Arm the gorillas: Bush doesn’t know the difference between gorillas and guerillas anyway.
2. Let them kill their immediate enemies.
3. Send them to Iraq and Iran, send Americans home.
I think this plan would go up the flag pole quickly with the current administration.
This really hurts, but I also agree with James.
urg! arg! urg! left arm in pain! – radiating up to chest! – can’t breath – lights fading! – see tunnel! – THUMP!!!!
#14 – Lauren,
I meant what I said literally as a response to post #10.
Violence, lawlessness and a complete disregard for life would not be new on any continent on which there are humans. You are right that the violence today is worse in many parts of Africa than it is today in most of the rest of the world. However, going a tad farther back in history, my statement holds. I was actually thinking of the enormous genocide of the native North (and South) Americans. So, I maintain, that violence, lawlessness, and complete disregard for life would not be new here. They would merely be resurrections of behaviors that were here less than 200 years ago.
#18 – It can’t hurt that much, can it?
It’s the Congo, what do you expect? This is just one crime in a country that practices systematic rape and the spread of AIDS through it as a weapon of war.
These idiots are killing their tourism industry.
Wow! how’d they get those huge chimps to lie down spear eagle? thats an impressive trick.
I agree w/ #8. If sci-fi is any guide, its almost certain that apes cant control their bestial aggression any more then we can.
The best way to support conservation is to allow hunting instead of outright bans. It’s worked in so many African countries with elephants and other animals.
Soft-pedal it all you like, Scott. If you totalled up every Native American, African-American and other ‘persons of color’ who have died as from racially-motivated murder or genocide in the entire North American continent, it wouldn’t equal the number of victims of genocide or tribally-motivated murder that die in sub-Saharan Africa in one calendar year. MUCH less than a year. And in stark contrast to the events of the past you prefer to wring your hands over – and which none of us has ANY responsiblility for – this slaughter of humans – as well as just about every other higher form of mammalian life – is taking place in the present. NOW. TODAY.
• • • • •
Leaving the human tragedy aside, this utter disregard for life, demonstrated graphically by the slaughter of those gorillas, just as the most recent example, is orders of magnitude worse in every way than the use of animals in research, something that gets all the self-appointed ‘protectors of life’ in a tizzy.
I’d like to know, where are the militants and the celebriity supporters of PETA? Where’re those brave, dedicated individuals who burn down labs where research into saving and prolonging human lives is being conducted? Can’t afford the plane fare? Having passport troubles? Or do primates not far removed from humans count less than lab rats and rabbits? Or maybe it’s simply Someone Else’s Problem, eh?
X on a stick, both hands bloody.
• • • •
Yes, Scott, humans can be violent and brutal. Just face the fact that most of that violence and brutality is being done today, and it’s not much of it being done by white Westerners, as Marxist multiculti PC slime would have the gullible of the world believe.
I am not commenting on this either, as I already did when it was first reported a couple weeks ago.
Scratch that, I am going to comment….Fusion…run to DailyKos fast for your response.
#23….tallwookie….I know you frequently make funny statements about posts of a serious nature…nice your inner child can issue forth. But, I would like to see if you could be spread eagled in a room full of rabid *buggers*.
#24….MikeN….your seriously mistaken…especially in this case, when you have less than 1000 of a species left, you don’t allow hunting of ANY kind. I would suggest you read up a bit more on Species preservation and Wild Animal welfare.
#10…gquaglia…I agree totally.
#25….Lauren the G…….You make the point well. Thank you.
Scott….I see your point, humans don’t seem to need a reason to harm one another, but while what has gone before us is unexscusable, whats going on in Africa right now, could be slowed if not prevented if the rest of the world would wake up and do something. Look at the record for the last 15 years alone. There’s hardly a country in sub-saharen Africa that hasn’t had multible wars, genocides and mass starvation of it’s own populace. Darfur, Rwanda, Nigeria, DRC, Sudan as a whole, Somolia, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Seirra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Chad….the list just goes on and on. What could be the richest, most powerful continent in the world is nothing more than a giant *thugland*.
What they have done to the most diverse groupings of wild life is just tragic. If it weren’t for the fact that we would lose whats left of those creatures, I would say just carpet bomb the whole fuc*king lot humans there and start over.
#23 – tallwookie,
I agree w/ #8. If sci-fi is any guide, its almost certain that apes cant control their bestial aggression any more then we can.
Have you heard of bonobos? There has never been a single case observed of lethal violence among bonobos.
Gorillas are actually quite peaceful as well. There are the occasional fights for dominance. But, far more often, the dispute is settled with only threat displays. Gorillas are much more like we’d like to believe we are; Chimps are more like we really are; Bonobos are the way hippies would like to be. Please don’t lump all apes together. We’re not all as bad as humans.
Oh, and if you can’t tell a chimp from a gorilla and can’t be bothered to read the headline, don’t post.
#25 – Lauren,
I do see your point and mostly agree with it. But, if you total up all of the genocide in North America from its discovery (second discovery, actually) and conquest by Europeans, the number is on the order of tens of millions. And, the population on the planet was a lot lower then, making it dramatically higher as a percentage of humanity than even those large numbers sound.
So, while I do agree with you, that most of today’s violence is where you say it is, I am just trying to keep history straight as well. There were about 20 to 30 million people in North America before 1492.
I think we’re mostly in agreement here.
#26 – joshua,
I agree with the sentiment of your last paragraph. However, I think you are making an error of over-generalization. I think you are ignoring that there are a lot of people there NOT committing horrific atrocities. I think you are ignoring that, for example, Gabon has just set aside huge tracts of land to be preserved, Botswana has converted their military into an anti-poaching force with great success. As misanthropic as I am, I would look for a way to get humans off the planet without further habitat destruction, wildlife murders, and extinction. Have you heard of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement?
http://vhemt.org
#7 – I donated a few weeks ago when I saw the heros segment on CNN. It was bad enough seeing the video then of what they do to the gorillas.
As for some of the other posts it’s nice to see that people can drag President Bush into any discussion. My faith in stupidity is restored.
#2 You said it all man.
There is another discussion to be had here: What do you make out of a gorilla?