Imagine opening a small cargo box at an airport and finding a five-month-old gorilla staring back at you.
On December 22, 2024, Turkish authorities intercepted a suspicious shipment at Istanbul Airport. Inside was a baby gorilla being transported from Nigeria toward Bangkok, Thailand. He had been confined inside a small box during a journey that could have ended very differently. The trade was illegal, and gorillas receive the highest level of protection under CITES, the international agreement regulating wildlife trade.
The young gorilla was taken into professional care in Istanbul, where he was later named Zeytin, meaning “Olive” in Turkish. Veterinarians said that when he first arrived, he was shy and mostly stayed wherever they placed him. Within weeks, however, Zeytin gained weight, became more active and started playing on his own.
But there is one detail that makes his story especially difficult to ignore. Zeytin was only around five months old, an age when a gorilla would normally still be extremely dependent on his mother. Gorilla infants remain close to their mothers for years and typically continue nursing until roughly three to four years old. Somehow, Zeytin had been separated from that natural care and ended up thousands of kilometres away, inside a cargo shipment.
His recovery is encouraging, Wildlings, but it also shows what wildlife trafficking can take from an animal long before authorities ever find the crate.
Zeytin got a second chance, but we may never know exactly what was taken from him before he was found.