Friday, August 22, 2008

A Pietà from the "Lower" Animal Kingdom

Earlier today, I could not think where to fit this news tidbit.

So I am giving it a posting of its own.

The photo heading this posting has been circulating at various news and blog sites all week. It's a picture of a mother, Gana, holding her dead baby, Claudio, who died in her arms last Saturday at a zoo in Münster, Germany.

Until today, Gana would not part with the body of her dead son.

Other pictures of Gana with the body of Claudio are at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/2604546/Gana-gorilla-who-guarded-dead-baby-finally-parts-with-her-son.html and www.herald.ie/world-news/heartbreak-at-the-zoo-as-gorilla-mum-gana-continues-to-cradle-her-dead-son-1460479.html. Since I believe these two are copyrighted, I am linking to them rather than placing copies on my blog.

I have seen few more moving pietàs.

And, of course, I know that one can find pictures equally soul-wrenching of human mothers around the world clinging to the bodies of children that ought not to have died due to hunger or illness that could easily be treated, if medical resources were more equitably distributed worldwide.

Even so, these don't diminish (for me) the tragedy of an animal many of us humans like to regard as "lesser" than ourselves mourning the untimely death of a baby.

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