He was sitting on a wood board, two meters from the ground, in a cubicle closed with glass and exposed to the public. Other four gorillas, closer to the floor, were together with him. He was the only silver back. An individual with singular characteristics hard to find in the world of its kind. Big, burly, with a huge head, he seemed a sphinx placed there to adorn the place.

A group of noisy children approaches the glass and hit it to cause a reaction, but he still does not move. His look is far away, cross the glass and goes, perhaps through hundreds of thousands of miles away in a rich  rainforest , where his family lived in peace with God and nature.

He was holding his emotions, it was clear, his eyes were fixed in an imaginary point, but the muscles of his face twitched, trying to contain his anger, his hatred, his rejection of the situation that he was being submitted to.

We were in Lisbon Zoo a week ago. I never thought I would witness that scene. Less than two feet away from me, that spectacular nature individual was being subjected to a so absurd humiliation.

The walls that made up that scenario, with beautiful painted images, explained that gorillas and apes were on the verge of extinction, that they were hunted in their habitat, that it was destroyed and that we should defend them. However, a few yards away, a family of gorillas was being massacred stupidly for fun, entertaining and, even worse, EDUCATE children. Those same children who were teasing the silver back gorilla one minute before and ignored when he did not react.

It is difficult to describe, especially for us who are deeply involved in the struggle for the rights of great apes in our societies, what we feel when we face such an unnamed scene.

We will never forget the look of that gorilla. It pierced our souls and gave us a more dramatic message than any word: Save us, Help us … Do not allow us to be explored like this …  Do not destroy the last link of contact between you, humans,  and us, your evolutionary ancestors! If our life commitment was solid, now it will be vastly more. That look of the gorilla in his solitude, arrested and humiliated, will make us fight even more for them.