A very touching photo showing a park ranger while comforting a devastated gorilla has taken the internet by storm. Apparently, the poor creature just lost his mom and during the overwhelming moment, he find comfort in the man who protects them from poachers.
In the moving snap, Patrick Karabaranga, an officer at the Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, sits with an orphaned mountain gorilla in the recreation center gorilla asylum. The gorilla seems, by all accounts, to be demonstrating his thankfulness for the sensitivity by setting his hand on the officer’s leg. This gorilla, similar to the next three orphnas presently living in the asylum, were brought there after their parents had gone due to poaching.
As a result of mass deforestation, the mountain gorillas, like many other species, have become a critically endangered species. In the last years, their numbers have dramatically declined. With more than 200 mountain gorillas, Virunga National Park represents around a quarter of the world’s mountain gorilla population.
