Harambe

Harambe was a gorilla who was murdered for the purported purpose of protecting a child that Harambe was protecting from other gorillas.

About

• I raised Harambe from the day he was born. He lived with his mama for the first twenty-one days.
  He was in a situation where there's this strange thing here that I don't know, what do I do? Do I fight it? Do I love it? Do I run from it? What do I do?
  • 31 May 2016 interview of Jerry Stones, who had raised Harambe's family since his grandparents came from Africa as children

• He just had two girlfriends and no babies yet, cause he's young, and you know, instead of being disappointed and making him feel like, you know, I just didn't want him to feel like OH... like everybody else is walking in and saying OH the babies aren't out, you know, and they'd be disappointed, like oh no, I can't.
  You know, I was just developing a relationship with him where he felt comfortable with me and my camera.
  Harambe was one of those where you just knew somebody was inside. I mean, it was, you know, I, I say I talked to him, that's mentally I'm not speaking out loud, but I felt like I talked to him all the time.
  And I felt he communicated with me and he seemed to be highly intelligent and interested in what was going on.
  And his personality with me seemed to be like he was always screwing with me, like, you know, oh, you want me to do this? So I'll do that.
  You know, it just seemed like we had, you know, a good relationship in that, that way, where he smiled at me all the time and that just, you know, made you feel good, you know?
  • 27 May 2021 interview of Jeff McCurry, the personal photographer of Harambe