Kommentar vum Fotograf:
“They are all beasts of burden in a sense, ' Thoreau once remarked of animals, 'made to carry some portion of our thoughts.' Animals are the old language of the imagination; one of the ten thousand tragedies of their disappearance would be a silencing of this speech.”
― Rebecca Solnit
Mountain gorillas have been critically endangered for dozens of years.
The apes of Central Africa face danger from habitat loss, hunting and armed conflict in the border region of the DRC and Rwanda. However, long term conservation efforts have been credited for an increase in population; from 620 individuals in the early 1990s to 880 in 2015.
Still, their numbers are far too low.
It is, as if this gorilla knew his entire species could be gone soon.
Picture taken in Rwanda's Virunga Mountains.