Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/17/watch-this-mother-gorilla-lovi.html
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The similarities between this gorilla mama gently kissing and holding her baby and that of a human mama is striking.
I feel the way people treat animals is pretty horrendous, and zoos depress me. “Game” hunters and poachers depress me even more.
That said, it looks to me more like gently cleaning than gently kissing. I’ve been present for two human births, and in neither one did the mother stick half the baby’s head in her mouth, much less lick their feet.
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That’s me and my dog person Whiskey after I give her peanut butter, that dog will do a algebra for peanut butter.
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Oxytocin–it’s a hell of a drug.
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Heck yeah. Babies. Empathy. Love.
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The decline stated means that everyone young enough to be on this forum has a good chance of witnessing the species to go practically extinct in the wild.
AFAIR, technically, not even I’m going to see them go extinct in the wild, since we have a 50 year period in which the species will be known to be extinct, but we will wait for another sighting.
With practically extinct, I refer to the fact that a viable population will no longer be existing at one point during our lifetime.
Unless.
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Looks more like Mama is cleaning off afterbirth and mucus.
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That’s sweet. I almost wish planet of the apes was real and as humans we’d all get our selfish anthropcentric asses kicked. On second thought I don’t ‘almost’ wish it, I do wish it. Why can’t wishes come true?
Yes, a human technician would use a syringe bulb to clear mucus from the airway.
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I WANNA BABY GORILLA! I WANNA BABY GORILLA! I WAN - Oh, holy crap! Look at the size of that baby’s hands!
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People have unfortunate attitudes about zoos, but it’s been a long time since they were just about caging animals for visitors to look at. Nowadays every major zoo in the world is just as much about conservation of species and captive breeding programs to support those conservation efforts. The displays for the visitors are mostly just to pay the bills.
What depresses me is the thought that someday zoos will be filled with animals who are no longer found in the wild, and live on only in captivity.
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Yes, she’s cleaning it, and in the future feeding it the same way. But that’s where our kissing habit came from anyway, so it is the same thing.
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Don’t fret, everybody-- a mother gorilla lovingly cleaning the mucous from the mouth and nose of her newborn baby is almost exactly as cute as her kissing it for no real reason, and yet both thankfully involve maternal snuggles. All the bases are covered. 
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…however,
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I agree. It looks to me like the mother is, for example, suctioning fluid out of the sinus cavities, something i believe medical personnel do for newborn humans.
It’s still a sign of love, however.
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Yeah, I didn’t want to burst the poster’s bubble, but that’s what it looks like to me. Though I’m sure she does have an emotional attachment to her baby.
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But they’re soooo beautiful and elegant! I still marvel at the beauty and variety of life on this planet.
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Cleaning, kissing; same diff.
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I not saying my greedy instinct to want a pet baby gorilla is a good one, but when you see opposable thumbs attached to something that’s going to get REAL BIG, it puts a damper on it!
I want a pet cougar. I want a pet jaguar. I want a pet buffalo. I want a pet moose… You see where I might be lacking whatever gene prevented some of the early humans from being trampled to death by pet mammoths or pet hippos.
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