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Kokotoo's Wall It's easy to show him respect. Just don't watch him. How many watchers can you find in Kokotoo's wall? "81k" 640x480 | "132k" 800x600 |
[1999]
I took this picture at St. Louis Zoo, last December. This is not the first depressed gorilla I've seen and it's far from the worst. The worst was one who sat in a concrete room about 20 feet square, with nothing in it except him and the wooden barstool he sat on. One wall was glass so people could walk past with many making fun of him. I hated it and swore I'd never go back. But that was years ago, and I thought things might have changed.
Today, things are better, but not enough. This is the very first sad wallpaper I've ever posted on my site. You know me..... negative emotions aren't something to be suffered. They're to be used. They're calls to action. Here is the way I utilized what I experienced. I saw his pain. I felt it as he must feel it. I remembered that pain is your friend, and so I used it as a call to action.
I called DeeAnn Draper in California at the Gorilla Foundation and I asked her, "How do you show respect to a silverback gorilla?"
What she told me made me sadder than ever. To show respect to a gorilla (including gorillas in zoos):
- Don't stare directly at them.
- Do not stand with your body facing straight towards them.
- Always look down and only glance at them briefly. Avoid eye contact.
- Gorillas prefer to be in a superior position. Most zoos were built with the watcher in mind, before we knew much about the needs of the watched. Jane Goodall asked Koko if she prefered people to stand or sit. Koko said 'down.'
- Be quiet because gorillas are quiet by nature. Visitors to zoos, especially children, make noise to try to interact with the animals. Gorillas usually are doing their best to ignore people and act as naturally as the circumstances allow. Loud noises will only elicit annoyed or fearful behavior.
I needed a solution, so I asked her what she thought about tinting the glass that people view them through at zoos so we can enjoy watching them without their feeling disrespect. She said that sounded like a good idea to her and related to me that Busch Garden's Lion area is viewed from inside a darkened cave-like atmosphere.... darker inside. All the lions see are their own reflections.
Then I called the St. Louis Zoo and spoke with a woman who works with the gorillas. She wouldn't tell me the name of this gorilla because then people might visit and call to him. Gorillas know their names and that would disturb them. That made perfect sense to me, and so I'll just call him, and all other zoo kept gorillas, Kokotoo.... because all gorillas make me think of Koko. I asked her if there was any reason Kokotoo might be depressed because everything in his body language said he was depressed. (His shoulders sagged, he sighed a lot, his movements were listless.) She said he probably was not depressed, that was probably just my interpretation. A lot of thought goes into the care and feeding of these great primates, and it's clear their caretakers really do care.
Then I asked..... "Can you tell me how to show respect to gorillas?"
She didn't hesitate. She knew the answer immediately. "Don't look at them." Then she paused and said "annnnd..... hundreds of people are looking at them every day......"
I wouldn't have even made this wallpaper if there wasn't a win-win-win resolution in it somewhere. The obvious resolution is to coat the glass with something so the gorillas cannot see us and our disrespect when gorillas are displayed indoors, and we need to stop letting people view them outside, or at the very least post a sign on the proper way to respect gorillas so we know how show them respect through our own choice of action. This way people still get to watch the gorillas, the gorillas are happier cause they're not subjected to constant disrespect from us, and if they're happier more people will come to the zoo and that benefits the zoo. See? Everyone CAN win, but only if you help.
If even half the people who see this page contact the St. Louis Zoo or the zoo nearest them, with a letter or call requesting more respect for the Gorillas and how to go about it, that's enough people to get something done. Please contact the St. Louis Zoo today.
About the faces in the wall: When Bill got the roll of film from our visit to St. Louis developed, he had a feeling I'd want to use the gorilla picture as the basis for a wallpaper. He cropped it a little and sent it to me.
It was tall enough for an 800x600 wallpaper but not nearly wide enough. So I thought, what the heck, I'll cut and paste a slim section of wall and grass over and over, flipping it back and forth. That's when a miracle happened.... the wall became a series of faces. There are faces of every size, every shape.... there are faces that resemble snakes, turtles, dogs, unseeing and judgmental people, and once it's up on your desktop, if you look below the toolbar, along the bottom of your browser, you'll see the cruelest faces of all. Their eyes are blind, and they're laughing. Look at it with a friend because you'll each see faces that the other misses. There are over a hundred faces just in the wall.
Strange that of all those pale, alien faces...... Kokotoo's attention seems drawn to the silver faces in the grass beside his knee, I see them as his ancestors perhaps. I wasn't too sure about making this page until the faces showed up. But once they did.....
hundreds of faces looking at him without respect or fear.
Unending pale alien faces into faces into faces
I know that zoos are one of the last refuges for the lowland gorillas.... and that's no reason to submit these fine primates to daily disrespect. Please, contact the St. Louis Zoo or a zoo near you and ask them to look at this page and consider how a little respect might benefit their gorillas. It can't cost that much to tint the glass and the rewards all around would be beautiful.
Just one more thing.... Is Kokotoo really depressed or is it just my interpretation? Look at the body language of these gorillas: Koko, Michael and Ndume, and then you tell me. Better yet, tell the St. Louis Zoo.
"The mind, once stretched by an empowering idea,
can never fully shrink to its original dimensions."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, paraphrased
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