Gorillas in the Mist

So many creatures inhabiting the Earth, passing the time, independently existing, their unique characteristics quintessentially unravelling holistic wonders and symbiotic serendipity. 

There must be a special day to commemorate the people who spend their lives protecting endangered species (or animals in general), who defend them through thick and thin with athletic devotion and spiritual incandescence. 

These amazing people make great sacrifices to defend species who can't defend themselves. In some cases risking everything to boldly defend their animate rights and biodiverse habitats. 

Gorillas in the Mist follows Dian Fossey as she defends the lives of Mountain Gorillas, in the far off reaches of the Congo she just dropped everything and moved there one day (and never moved back).

Her initial job is to count them which she does with adoring praise, I wonder what it was like, the first moment she saw one, not as displayed in the film but as a bona fide fact of life.

In the film she adapts incredibly well and doesn't focus too much on her previous existence, she maintains some creature comforts but is otherwise %1,000 committed to the Gorillas.

She fights the poachers as well and also takes on broad zookeeping interests, not just with petitions and rhetoric she vigorously combats them at the grassroots level. 

The zookeeper has high ranking friends whom she must clearly convince to honour Gorilla kind, her work permit at times hanging in the balance while she ruffles feathers with genuine righteousness. 

That isn't to say her life's one big conflict where she consistently engages in rambunctious reform, she spends most of her time reverently studying the dynamic Gorillas at play.

That would be cool to sit back and observe such a vigorous species for years on end, gentle giants living off vegetation their inquisitive babies beyond cute and cuddly.

As the years pass she grows tired of the continuous poaching in the mountains, and turns into quite the warrior when she isn't immersed in study.

She confronts poachers with bellicose sincerity and her reciprocal methods produce results.

But she's far too efficient in the end.

Which leads them to hunt her as well.

Nevertheless, she gave her life to courageously defend the ontological interests of an endangered species. 

I'll always consider her with reverence. 

Jane Goodall too (chimpanzees).

And so many others. 

Koko: A Talking Gorilla

Koko: A Talking Gorilla presents pioneering documentary wildlife footage, shot long before Love Nature and BBC Earth emerged, it offers a direct hands-on approach to the crafting of naturalistic wonder. 

In a scholastic setting.

Is it possible for gorillas to acquire humanistic language skills?

Yes, Barbet Schroeder showcases the evidence within, and even if Koko doesn't learn to sign perfect human, he still learns hundreds of words by heart, and can engage in elementary small talk.

However, I have to admit that as I watched Koko and Penny Patterson communicating, I felt kind of bad for the verbose beastie, who seems somewhat uncomfortable a lot of the time within the film.

He often seems like he'd much rather be foraging around in the jungle, and although the experiment produces compelling results, did it thoroughly take into account Koko's natural instincts, his innate desires to gorilla about?

I like experiments that teach us more about animal kind because they're good at deconstructing stereotypes regarding non-humans, but so many of the them end with horrible results for the animals, that sometimes it seems like it's best not to conduct them.

I'm thinking about Susan Casey's book Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins, anyways, which starts out with a cool example of beatniks swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, while totally respecting dolphin kind's independence.

But then chapter after chapter chronicles horrendous interactions between well-meaning (and not so well-meaning) scientists (and others) and dolphins, which left me with a rather critical outlook regarding such experiments, since so many of them ended horribly.

I think animal awareness has remarkably improved in some countries and regions over the past 20 years, and there's certainly an abundance of caring people sharing animal love on the internet.

And I imagine generations are following David Attenborough's incredible example as they respectfully interact with our fellow Terran inhabitants (who have just as much of a right to this planet as we do). 

But the good's still mixed with an abundance of bad of cruel practices and experiments that are socially accepted, not to mention cultural prejudices which display shocking misguided horror, sign up for emails from Peta, be prepared for extreme woe.

Koko's treated well in the film and the people involved don't employ old school viewpoints, which justify outrageous abuses of intelligent animals based upon preferences for intellectual standing.

Rather they try to break down the barriers which uphold so many distressing rationalities. 

Koko still seems like he'd rather be playing.

I'm not sure where to draw the line.

I wonder what Jane Goodall thinks of this film?

Note: I love Orangutan Jungle School.