More than two years into the Covid pandemic, believers in conspiracy theories about vaccines are fixated on a gorilla.
"After spending over a year attempting to implicate overwhelmingly safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in as many deaths and injuries as possible, you’d think pandemic truthers would be running low on novel fear-mongering narratives to peddle. But earlier this month, influencers in this space identified a totally new and unexpected alleged vaccine victim: a gorilla," Mark Hay wrote for The Daily Beast. "Until last month, Martha, a 32-year-old western lowland gorilla, lived at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. According to a slew of COVID truther articles, newsletters, and social-media posts, she was a happy, healthy mother—until zoo staff senselessly injected her with a COVID-19 vaccine. Then she died suddenly and unexpectedly of multiple organ failure, stemming from an undetected fibrosing heart disease. Which, to anti-vax eyes, was clearly caused by the jab. (It wasn’t)."
The Beast offered multiple accounts of people pushing conspiracy theories about the gorilla.
"There’s just one problem with this tale: It’s total bullshit. In fact, Martha was not even vaccinated," The Beast noted. "Notably, some truthers have focused on Martha’s age, likely because they are obsessed with the idea that COVID-19 vaccines are causing an unprecedented epidemic of heart disease among young, healthy humans, and 32 sounds quite young. But Martha Robbins, a leading gorilla researcher and conservationist, told The Daily Beast that, for a gorilla, Martha wasn’t young at all. In the wild, most gorillas die between the ages of 30 and 40."
The zoo honored Martha after her death.
"Martha was the last gorilla baby born to the Zoo’s matriarch and patriarch, Katunga and Lamydoc. While Lamydoc and Katunga produced 11 offspring, Katunga was never very interested in raising any of them. Accordingly, Martha was raised by staff and then successfully integrated back into the troop," the Zoo said. "Despite being hand-raised, she was an excellent mother to her six offspring, including Asha and Megan (now on loan to the Dallas Zoo) and Tracy James (now on loan to the Houston Zoo). Another one of her offspring, Margaret, still resides at Gladys Porter Zoo and is now rearing a baby of her own. Martha’s last baby, Kruger, is nearly three years old. He is currently being cared for by the troop, under the protective eye of his father, Mbundi."
Watch:
Martha - Western Lowland Gorillawww.youtube.com
