Mariana van Zeller
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And there's this huge silverback gorilla just sitting there.
And the whole family is there.
They had had a baby.
The mother had had a baby just the week before.
And this is, you know, animals that are being pushed to the brink of extinction.
So it was really special.
It was a week of celebration at the park.
And we saw the little baby.
And there was a moment that we're filming and my producer and my team is like next to me.
And then another huge gorilla comes jumping and rushes right by them.
So I think that they have to become used to the presence of humans.
So a lot of the park ranger's job is actually to get them to get used to presence with the hope that they can bring in tourism again.
So I think that's part of what they do.
So this family of gorillas was used to people and they don't bother you at all.
And we were this distance from the gorilla, me to you.
Most of them, the hunters, are from the Congo.
They're the pygmies, the Batra pygmies.
The middlemen are Congolese men that see an opportunity.