The Face of Poaching

In 2002, this silverback gorilla wandered out of the jungle into the town of Abong-Mbang, Cameroon. Swamps in the jungle kept the ecosystem intact right to the edges of town until recently. The silverback walked the dirt streets of Abong-Mbang until it was shot near the hospital by a retired gendarme. Though killing a endangered species was illegal at the time, the law against doing so went unenforced. For a few dollars, wildlife traffickers and poachers could bribe government officials to look the other way. The lack of concern by the gendarme to have himself photographed after committing what was a crime, speaks to the ambivalence to the law. Jane Goodall’s prophesy that apes in the wild would soon become extinct has largely been proven true in Cameroon in terms of gorillas, which Ofir says his investigators seldom see anymore in the illegal animal trade. (Ofir photographed the photo in the gendarme’s house.)