Illegal killings of gorillas are reducing their numbers far faster than would be expected from normal 1) . Here is the story of one gorilla family.
Carrying spears and knives, hunters entered an African game preserve, where it was unlawful to kill or capture wildlife. When they spotted a young male gorilla, they close in. Ten adult gorillas, members of a(n) 2) family group, attempted to shield the infant. The men quickly quilled all the adult gorillas. As if 3) to the infant’s screams, the men strapped his hands and feet to bamboo poles with wire, then carried him down the mountain on which he’d been born.
After several weeks, Dian Fossey, an American studying gorillas in the wild, learned that the young gorilla had been taken to park officials. She found him in a cage so small that he had no room to stand or turn. He was clearly frightened and nearly dead-thirsty, starving, and with infected wounds at his ankles and wrists. Fossey could hardly believe that the officials could 4) such reprehensible cruelty.
When Fossey demanded an explanation from the park’s chief official, he seemed 5) about the animal. Finally, however, he admitted that he had made an illicit deal with a German zoo. In return for a new car, he had arranged for the gorilla’s capture. Fossey was 6) in insisting that the infant be released into her care. The official agreed on the condition that the infant be shipped to the zoo as soon as his health returned.
For several months, Fossey cared for the infant, now named Coco, who would cling to her for solace. When he became more 7), he began to romp and explore. In an effort to 8) the agreement to send Coco to the zoo, Fossey 9)(e)d the government officials with letters, begging them to step in and arrange for him to be returned to the wild. In the end, though, the little gorilla was taken away from her-a(n) 10) hardship for both of them. Gorillas can live into their 50s, but Coco died in the zoo at the age of 12.