Exclusive: The Harambe Tapes, Revealed

Summary

Podcast Summary: Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: Exclusive: The Harambe Tapes, Revealed

Date: May 28, 2026
Host: Pablo Torre (The Athletic)
Special Guests: Desus Nice, Katie Nolan, Jeff McCurry (Harambe’s photographer), various correspondents and experts.

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Episode Overview

This Pulitzer-winning podcast episode explores the legacy and mythos of Harambe, the late Cincinnati Zoo gorilla, on the tenth anniversary of his famous, tragic death. Pablo Torre, with guests Desus Nice and Katie Nolan, investigates a decade-old tip about secret Harambe videos ("the Harambe tapes"), revealed and contextualized for the first time. Along the way, the show unpacks the internet’s obsession with Harambe, meme culture, and the ethical realities of zoos and animal captivity. The episode uniquely blends humor, investigative reporting, pop culture commentary, and genuine emotion to understand why Harambe’s story became—and remains—so powerful.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Why Harambe, Why Now?

• Pablo begins by teasing a “secret sound” and facing friendly ribbing from his co-hosts about capitalizing on Harambe’s legacy (03:20).
• Katie Nolan and Desus Nice receive folders, hinting they’re in the dark about the episode’s topic (03:25).
• Pablo plays a voicemail from Jeff McCurry, the tipster/photographer claiming to possess “secret videos” the zoo has kept hidden (04:36).

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2. Recapping the Harambe Incident & Its Cultural Aftermath

• Retelling of the May 28, 2016, incident: a 3-year-old boy falls into the Cincinnati Zoo gorilla enclosure, leading to Harambe’s killing (05:11–06:12).
• Discussion of Harambe’s internet immortality—from memes to mock elections, rap tributes, and viral catchphrases (“out for Harambe”) (06:19–08:24).
• The trio reflect on the absurdity (“Thousands of Americans Vote for a Dead Gorilla" / "Would Donald Trump Have Killed the Gorilla?" headlines), and meme culture’s role in shaping the event’s legacy (08:27–09:39).

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3. Introducing Jeff McCurry: Harambe’s Photographer, Friend, and Whistleblower

• Jeff McCurry, a 64-year-old photographer, becomes central: his backstory includes a traumatic car accident, sports photography, a stint in federal prison for growing marijuana, and eventual bond with Harambe at the zoo (14:30–22:24).
• Jeff’s personal connection: “It’s odd to say, but I was friends with a gorilla.” (17:16, Jeff McCurry)
• Harambe is described as both a “natural born ham” and a social, sensitive animal impacted by loss and captivity.

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4. Harambe’s Origin Story & Tragic Family History

• The meaning of Harambe’s name—Swahili for “pulling together, sharing and caring” (24:16–26:00).
• Harambe’s early trauma: mother, sibling, and another gorilla die during a chlorine tank accident at the Gladys Porter Zoo. Later, Harambe’s father dies of heart disease (27:55–29:48).
• Harambe, orphaned and human-reared, eventually transferred to Cincinnati as a teenage “rookie silverback” (30:01–32:00).

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5. From Sports Photographer to Harambe’s Confidant

• Jeff’s journey from volunteer sports photographer to Harambe’s unofficial chronicler: “Harambe was not personally so much searching for a mate… Harambe wanted a friend, and I was like, damn it, Harambe, I’ll hang out with you.” (36:06, Jeff)
• Jeff recounts their “friendship,” including Harambe posing for photos and ignoring his female companions (39:11).
• “Whenever I would go, I’d stop by, and remembering my prison experience, I remembered how great it was to get a visitor. If I could cheer you up for a few minutes in your day, make it better, you know, I’d go and hang out with him..." (36:06, Jeff)

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6. The Day of the Incident (May 28, 2016)

• Jeff describes nearly preventing a similar child incident that very morning but had to leave for a basketball game; learns of Harambe’s death via the news (40:22–41:58).
• His sense of loss: “You feel whenever a friend of yours died, you just like, no, I can’t believe I’m not going to be able to spend time with them ever again.” (42:33, Jeff)
• Broader context: The debate over blame (mom vs. zoo), with Jeff saying, “That exhibit had to be bulletproof... That made it all the zoo’s fault and none of the mother’s fault.” (45:28)

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7. Cultural Ripples: Meme Economy, NIL, and Unintended Consequences

• Internet and commercial exploitation: The infamous Harambe photo (taken by Jeff) appears everywhere; Jeff trademarks Harambe’s name and likeness, sues Barstool’s “Pardon My Take” over unauthorized shirt sales (47:03–48:13).
• “This podcast probably wouldn’t exist to this day if that gorilla hadn’t gotten shot.” (48:21, PFT Commenter)
• Reflection on the Internet’s role in amplifying and distorting tragic stories for clicks and likes (49:46).

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8. The ‘Secret’ Harambe Tapes: What Was Hidden and Why?

• What are the tapes? Video evidence, filmed lovingly by Jeff, of Harambe engaging in apparently taboo but natural behaviors—specifically, coprophagy (eating his own feces) (51:16–54:23).
• “He is a... oh my god, he just pulled a poop out of his butt." (51:24, Katie Nolan)
• The zoo’s attempt to suppress these videos out of fear of more viral spectacle: “We would really not like the videos to be made public. They would only make media attention unbearable and prolong this ordeal for all of us.” (54:36, Cincinnati Zoo email)

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9. Scientific and Ethical Context: Coprophagy and Stress in Captive Gorillas

• Coprophagy is rare in the wild but common under stress in captivity, say experts like Dr. Ian Redmond. Harambe may have done this either out of hunger or as a bid for human attention (56:00–57:27).
• “When I do this, the humans all make funny noises and... might be a curious feedback mechanism.” (57:17, Dr. Redmond)
• Jeff’s criticism: “They're in prison. There’s just nothing you can do to change that. That’s not healthy for them, that’s not good for them. It’s mentally damaging to—any creature that has a brain.” (58:05, Jeff)

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10. What Do We Do With This Story?

• Pablo’s internal struggle: “I am not trying to turn this into a big like anti-zoo thing. I’m actually conflicted... What do we do with this?” (60:41)
• The hosts grapple with their own emotional response, ending on a note of self-reflection and absurdity:
  • “All Harambe wanted was for you to laugh... And what did that get him? A bullet between the eyes.” (63:33, Katie Nolan)
  • “We didn’t know him. But in learning about him, do we not learn more about ourselves?” (64:05, Desus Nice)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Meme Culture’s Absurdity:
  “Would Donald Trump have killed the gorilla? Harambe’s death was the beginning of the fall of society.” (08:35, Desus)
• On Jeff’s Connection:
  “It’s odd to say, but I was friends with a gorilla.” (17:16, Jeff)
• On Harambe’s Personality:
  “He was a natural born ham... he would do things to get a reaction out of me.” (39:11, Jeff)
• On Gorillas and Grief:
  “To see the gorillas so sad, just sitting there, you can tell that there is a sorrow, there is something that they are missing.” (29:07, from 2002 news article, read by Katie)
• On the “Taboo” Tapes:
  “He just pulled a poop out of his butt... green. Do not eat it.” (51:24, Katie) “See, a lot of people don’t realize you create your own fiber, you don’t have to go buy it from a store.” (51:36, Desus)
• Scientific Reflection:
  “When I do this, the humans all make funny noises and... might be a curious feedback mechanism.” (57:17, Dr. Ian Redmond)
• On Internet Opportunism:
  “You’re trying to get your views and your clicks off of gorilla.” (48:45, PFT Commenter, satirical jab at Pablo)
• Emotional Impact:
  “All Harambe wanted was for you to laugh... And what did that get him? A bullet between the eyes.” (63:33, Katie)
• Self-Reflection:
  “We didn’t know him. But in learning about him, do we not learn more about ourselves?” (64:05, Desus)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 03:20 – Guests are clued in about the secretive episode topic.
• 04:36 – Jeff’s tip voicemail introduces the “secret tapes.”
• 05:11–06:12 – Harambe’s incident recapped.
• 08:27–09:39 – Discussion of meme headlines and post-Harambe internet culture.
• 14:30–22:24 – Deep introduction to Jeff McCurry’s life and his bond with Harambe.
• 24:16–26:00 – Exploration of Harambe’s name and family origins.
• 27:55–29:48 – The tragedy at Gladys Porter Zoo.
• 36:06 – Jeff describes befriending Harambe.
• 40:22–41:58 – The fateful day of Harambe’s death.
• 47:03–48:13 – Legal battles over Harambe's viral image.
• 51:16–54:23 – The reveal and reaction to the “Harambe tapes.”
• 56:00–57:27 – Scientific/ethical analysis of coprophagy.
• 60:41–62:36 – Pablo, Desus, Katie, and listeners reckon with the episode’s deeper meaning.
• 63:44–64:24 – Closing reflections on Harambe’s impact and complexity.

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Episode Tone & Style

• Language/Tone: Characteristically witty, irreverent, and deeply curious; switches between comedic banter and genuine pathos.
• Personal Reflection: Both hosts and guests explicitly process their own conflicted feelings in real time, mirroring the complex public relationship with Harambe.

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Conclusion

This “talkumentary” episode provides—and complicates—the definitive account of Harambe’s legacy, blending viral internet moments, the hard realities of animal captivity, and the human desire for connection (and spectacle). Through interviews, archival research, and self-aware humor, Pablo Torre and colleagues not only uncover the truth behind the secret “Harambe tapes,” but also prompt listeners to “find out” what this story reveals about ourselves and the systems we build around animals and media.

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For more, follow @PabloTorreFindsOut on your preferred podcast platform and social media.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[B]

I'm recusing myself of this conversation because I think it's bull, Pablo, that you are trying to capitalize off a dead gorilla.

[A]

We would never do that right after this ad.

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[C]

I hate it.

[E]

As always.

[B]

I'm terrified.

[C]

I hate it. As always.

[A]

So you have folders in front of you.

[C]

I see them.

[A]

I have what has been alleged to be a eating grin on my face. That is how much I'm enjoying having.

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

Are we going to like it as much as you like it?

[A]

I can't totally be sure.

[C]

Great.

[A]

I do know that Deez is nice. Katie Nolan, you are both my friends.

[C]

For now.

[B]

For now.

[A]

And also animal people.

[C]

What's going on? Yeah.

[A]

Huh. And we do like dogs. You have. You have. You have dogs?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Is it about something that happened a couple months ago in Prospect Park? Because the dog came at me saying like.

[A]

It's about something that we got at our tip line here. Pablo Torre finds out fans, whistleblowers, they will dial 51385.

[B]

Pablo, it was that in area codes with Ludacris.

[C]

Oh, good.

[B]

That's how I reference everything.

[A]

I don't know if Ludacris has hoes in Cincinnati, Ohio.

[C]

No, I think fantasy doesn't mention it.

[A]

Yeah, but this is the area code we were randomly assigned by Google. But cosmically recurs. Interesting, because this was earlier this year. We got a tip.

[D]

Hi, my name is Jeff McCurry. I'd like to see if you would like to show the world the secret videos that the zoo has tried to keep quiet for 10 years. These videos are very graphic. They absolutely are real. Everybody that's seen them is just speechless. Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you. We have several months till the 10th anniversary and I thought I'd reach out to you and see if you're interested in breaking this story. Thank you.

[C]

Was Harambe, Cincinnati.

[A]

Oh, wow. On May 28th.

[C]

Oh my God.

[A]

2016.

[C]

Oh my God.

[A]

Exactly 10 years ago at the Cincinnati Zoo. Outrage over an incident at the Cincinnati Zoo when a three year old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure. Saturday, for 10 agonizing minutes, onlookers watched, including the boy's mother who cried out to him, mommy's right here. At one point, the 420 pound male silverback named Harambe grabbed the boy's ankle and dragged him through the water. Mommy.

[C]

Monkey.

[A]

I'm right here. Unfortunately, we only have just a little bit of a window of what happened. Right. What I really wanna see is how the heck this draw child ended up at the top of the barrier, through the brush and into the moat. We don't have that yet.

[D]

The bottom line is that once that little boy was in the hands of that gorilla, unfortunately, that's a death sentence for the gorilla. Did the zoo make the right call?

[A]

The gorilla's behavior was textbook protective behavior for a gorilla. They run around with their kids like

[B]

that in the wild.

[A]

The kids know to jump on the back. Any gorilla expert should know that gorilla

[B]

was not acting violently towards that child.

[A]

And after all that attention, all that news coverage. Gorilla, of course, came the memes.

[C]

This is an interesting sign. What does this mean?

[A]

I'm sure you all heard about Harambe, the gorilla. He was murdered in the Cincinnati Zoo. And I'm just saying, like, out for Harambe. That's a rallying cry. Yeah.

[C]

So your you pull it out for Harambe.

[A]

I mean, if Harambe was here, it'd be out right now. You know, you could see some people that are running up right now. Push out for Harambe.

[B]

Okay, thank you.

[D]

Out for Harambe.

[A]

All right.

[C]

Out for Harambe.

[A]

You know what the it is?

[B]

Hey, out for Harambe. The death of this gorilla has given me a lot of joy.

[D]

I hate to say it.

[B]

Oh, tremendous. Not, not in a bad way, like Rip Harambe for real.

[D]

But it's been really funny.

[B]

You could have given me 10,000 tries. This is. I did not think. This is going to be disgusting.

[C]

No chance. Why us?

[B]

Rest in peace, Harambe.

[A]

Well, one reason why is that Desus personally, I did not shoot him. Happened to tweet quite a bit about Harambe according to our records.

[C]

I bet.

[A]

2016.

[D]

Oh yeah.

[B]

My only wish was h was alive to see us go to state win. He was a big fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had a lot going on in 2016, or maybe not that much going on in 2016.

[A]

And when we tell the young people of America what 2016 was like, it's really important to like educate them.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Barstool made an empire out of Harambe stuff. I remember seeing on, pardon my take, which was I think like the one of the main, like centers of Harambe content. They were like fantasy drafting. And Joe Burrow drafted Harambe as a defensive end for the Bengals you gotta take Harambe, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I mean, the strength to weight ratio is just way higher than humans.

[A]

I mean, that's a easy seven sacks a game. I'm sure we are all of the sports Internet and Harambe was our gorilla desus. There are some headlines here that I'd like you to help us remember.

[B]

Ok. Thousands of Americans vote for a dead gorilla.

[C]

Basically.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which brings us to the next headline.

[B]

Would Donald Trump have killed the Gorilla? Harembe's death was the beginning of the fall of society.

[C]

I'd hear that out. I would hear that out.

[A]

I don't want to be numb to the idea that would Donald Trump have killed the gorilla? Was a headline.

[C]

In what sense are they asking? Like, I don't think the president authorized the shot.

[A]

Be president to be. Yeah, this was. This was a. Yeah.

[B]

Back then it was like, back then it'd be like, oh, my God, we don't really know Donald Trump. We're like, would he possibly.

[A]

If he knew Donald Trump now, he'd

[B]

pull out a penknife, dig his eyes out and gleefully say, I was the biggest gorilla ever. They would have voted for me. But we didn't know that back then. We were young city bumpkins. We knew nothing about primates.

[A]

Donald Trump, according to cnn, said that a Cincinnati zoo probably had no choice but to kill a gorilla. It was a very tough call.

[D]

It was amazing because there were moments

[B]

with the gorilla, the way he held that child, it was almost like a

[A]

mother holding a baby.

[B]

Looks so beautiful and calm.

[C]

What Donald Trump said that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Appeared beautiful and calm.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

That. I don't like the way that feels.

[B]

He's also really big with the gorillas. The gorillas would have voted for him 10 times.

[A]

But this, all of this, the news cycle that was Harambe. I really don't want to dwell on

[C]

this too much, which usually means he does.

[A]

There is also this headline, elon Musk

[C]

drops rap song eulogizing Harambe the gorilla.

[A]

You remember this?

[C]

No, I don't. And please don't remind me of it.

[D]

Sipping on some bomb.

[A]

We on our way.

[B]

Wow. They weren't kidding. Drake has showed no growth on Iceman. Like, what is this?

[C]

You said let's not dwell, so let's not dwell.

[A]

For the last four months, we have been unfortunately dwelling.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We've been trying to figure out, in fairness, like, is Jeff the whistleblower? Is he full of. Because what he has told us of this scoop of these videos that he's

[D]

promising is, quote, this may ruin Harambe's reputation, but it may change the world's feelings about zoos.

[A]

End quote.

[C]

So is this. This is going to demonize Harambe. What are they going to show? That he reached across and brought the child into the. What could the tapes possibly show?

[B]

They show Harambe's final words with or without gang violence,

[C]

right? Unless it's a video of Harambe just looking in the camera and being like this kid grabbing the kid. This kid specifically wise. I don't know what he could possibly do to change my oh wow. I hated that look.

[A]

Luckily.

[C]

Great.

[A]

This is a show where we do find out.

[B]

Let's go.

[C]

I can already hear the wika G G G G G G Wick get your little theme song play.

[A]

I love the acapella version.

[B]

You gotta hire her like rockabilly from Carbon San Diego.

[A]

Doo doo doo pop.

[C]

That was good.

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[B]

Recently we asked some people about sharing their New York Times accounts.

[A]

I'm Neeraj from Madison, Wisconsin. I would like to share my subscription with my family members. I should be able to share recipes from nyt, cooking wirecutter articles or athletic articles. We are a family of four. I would like them to have access to the subscription too. Thank you Neeraj. We heard you.

[B]

It's why we created the New York Times Family Subscription. One subscription, up to four separate Logins

[A]

for anyone in your life. Find out [e-mail] family. This is a story about two characters that I have come to really appreciate. This is a story about two parallel timelines, two primate species, two arguably parallel dimensions. And our first character is a 64 year old man named Jeff McCurry and aka Jeff the whistleblower.

[D]

I know it sounds, you know, like I'm full of myself or whatever, but I'm just being honest. Crazy finds me. Congratulations to you, Pablo. I consider you in that list now. It's like I met Pablo and the Sava wins a Pulitzer Prize. I was literally sitting in my chair thinking, man, 10th anniversary is coming up. I need to reach out to somebody. And I found and chose you. And you got back with me in minutes. I was like, holy, this was the right person to contact. So it was a match made in heaven.

[A]

So describe the visuals on Jeff.

[C]

As soon as you see behind Jeff, there are three by three square shaped, just portraits of Harambe in different poses. But some of them look a lot alike. Like I would not have hung up the one on the top left next to the one in the middle top because they. It looks too similar from far away. Those should be in separate parts of your wall collage.

[A]

The top, middle one. That is like the photo, the one

[C]

you've all seen that's been memed to high heavens.

[B]

Yeah. More importantly though, what we're not noticing. And I just realized it right now.

[C]

What's that?

[B]

The Harambe lapel?

[C]

Yeah. When you say we're not noticing, I had seen it. It is like a.

[A]

What is Jeff wearing now?

[C]

It's almost like on a. On an Adidas tee. That would have. Where it would have the stripes down the top of the shoulder.

[B]

Look at our drag race on.

[C]

Oh, it's his whole. Oh my God. Oh, sorry. It's a Harambe jersey. He plays for the Harambes.

[B]

It's a Mitchell and Ness throwback.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

From 1986 where Harambe paid for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

[A]

Actually say on the front it says Fred Nats. This is the Fredericksburg Nationals, a single a affiliate of the Washington Nationals.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And they had a Harambe night.

[C]

Great.

[A]

Oh, and it got delayed because of

[C]

COVID but they still did it.

[A]

Well, you have to do it.

[C]

You gotta go through with it.

[A]

Limited edition merch.

[C]

What am I gonna do with all these Harambe jerseys?

[A]

It was the five year anniversary back then and the proceeds were gonna go to the Dutch Gorilla Foundation. The this was going to be this whole game worn auction thing. And it all got derailed because of a global pandemic.

[C]

A global pandemic that'll happen.

[A]

But I think we should let Jeff explain what his sort of motive was when it comes to his friend.

[D]

This is my way of honoring Harambe, wearing and displaying him as much as I can. So when your podcast gets out there and anybody that sees it, they'll, you know, they'll have to look at Harambe also, too. Not just me. It's odd to say, but I was friends with a gorilla.

[B]

You know, Worst tipe song ever.

[C]

I was friends with the gorilla.

[A]

Speaking of someone who knows how to

[C]

auto tune sleeping, he grabbing that kid. I'm friends with the gorilla.

[A]

But then On Christmas Eve 1985, when Jeff was 24 years old, he was hit by a drunk driver. He broke every bone in his body. He was in a coma for almost two weeks. But this sort of, like, silver lining is he got a disability payout, meaning he essentially retired at 24. And in his late 30s, he sees an ad in the school paper for a photographer position. Photo editor says, you got a camera?

[D]

I'm like, yeah, and hands me two rolls of film. He said, you're our new sports photographer.

[A]

And what he says is that he got invited into these worlds. Dugouts, courtside. It's how he learned how to build trust with his subjects. My point is that this is actually something of a sports story.

[D]

Being a photographer in general, people invite you into the world, but being a sports photographer, you get invited into worlds where nobody else is allowed.

[A]

While all this is happening, Jeff is still in extreme pain.

[D]

This past weekend, right?

[A]

He's taking 120 pain pills a month. It's this combo of oxy and Tylenol. They don't even allow this stuff anymore. But then, Jeff McCurry and Katie Nolan, you will now, I think, realize why you are also here for this episode.

[B]

You know him?

[C]

Christ.

[D]

One time I walked in the doctor and she looked at me, she goes, wait a minute, Jeff. You're a zombie. And then it dawned on me. Ten years after, it's like, wait a minute, you idiot. You're having trouble sleeping. You never smoked weed because it helped you. It made you tired. Try that. And so I tried it, and it just changed my life tremendously. And I had a doctor that I saw regularly. And I went in, saw him one day, and he's like, jeff, what happened? You're so much better. And, you know, this was before legalization was very common and everything. And I'm like, you know, it's illegal. I don't know if we should talk about it because, well, whatever it is, keep doing it, because it definitely made you better. I'm like, okay, not the guy in

[B]

Cincinnati with the white ponytail and the minor league jersey finding the benefits of weed. Who could have seen that coming? My God, no.

[A]

Jeff discovered the beauty of the natural world in this way.

[D]

And so I started growing for myself and got really good at it. I had a friend selling a house out in the country out Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, if you've ever heard of it. They used to have their mare was a dog for many years. Got them lots of nails.

[A]

Hold on, hold on. I'm sorry. This is. I, I. This is the town where the mayor was a dog.

[D]

Absolutely. Yeah. He got reelected three or four times.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If you don't smoke weed and you're watching this, this is what it's like to smoke weed. You have a guy who was best friends with a gorilla talking about a small town that had a dog as a mayor. That's called Indica. There's a lot going on right now. You're listening to this podcast. You are not passing any drug tests for the next three days.

[A]

Whistleblower Jeff buys a house in Rabbit Hash to start growing weed. And I just need to establish people who are doubting us. The dog mayor thing was real.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We report today from Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, where at least 10 dogs, a cat and a donkey, are running for mayor. Alas, Goofy became the nation's first elected official to be euthanized, but satisfied voters elected another dog Junior, who himself recently went to that big bone buffet in the sky. CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer is keeping a close eye on the election. Well, Bill, it seems pretty obvious to me that this dog vote may be split 10 ways. And of course, that could greatly benefit the candidacy of Travis the cat. The split does not seem to be helping Higgins, however, who may want to consider defining himself as a donkey rather than a jackass. But I do have to say I admire his honesty.

[C]

Dude, this is a different dogma area than I was even thinking of. This is sick. I'm obsessed with this.

[A]

That was on CBS News. Yeah.

[C]

No, I want to watch only stuff like that.

[B]

Barry Weiss is never reaching this level.

[C]

No chance the dog's splitting it 10 ways, helping out the cat.

[B]

There's graphics involved. There's deep dives.

[C]

Maybe don't go by jackass, go by donkey.

[B]

Also, we can euthanize mares. Cause, I mean, Eric, Adam died possibly.

[C]

That is truly. I can't believe that next dog got into the job. Knowing how the last one left off,

[B]

I'll do a better job.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

This is where Jeff moves. He moves to. Yeah.

[C]

Rabbit's hash.

[A]

Rabbit, Rabbit hash.

[B]

Rabbit hash.

[C]

Rabbit hash. Which is funny cuz my mom's always complaining that the rabbits are eating her weed. She has to put like specific like a cage around her weed plant so that the rabbits don't eat it.

[B]

And rabbit hash sounds like just the worst weed you've ever smoked.

[C]

Yeah, just dry.

[B]

What is this? CB9.

[A]

Like these are all issues that I think Jeff was probably personally familiar with.

[C]

Yeah. And the mayor was working on.

[D]

So I bought a house from a friend down there and filled it up with marijuana plants and was growing and thinking, okay, I'm going to, you know, do this and make some money off of it. But before I made money off it, regrettably, a friend of mine's brother in law who we had let go to the place because it had a creek in the, on the property and he would fish there and he got pissed off at my friend's wife on Thanksgiving and so he called Crime Stoppers twice and told him, you know exactly where I was. And that's how I got arrested.

[A]

The federal government alleges in its 2005 indictment here that we obtained that quote, you did knowingly and intentionally manufacture and possess with intent to distribute approximately 350 plants of marijuana.

[D]

450 actually, wouldn't it?

[B]

Check the stats.

[C]

Check the stats.

[A]

My average stats.

[B]

Pablo.

[A]

Scoreboard fact checking wise, Jeff, is it turns out correct. They found apparently 100 extra plants at the address next door. This all coming by the way, from this count that was dismissed as part of his plea deal. All you gotta know for right now is that Jeff goes off to federal prison and we are going to turn our attention to Brownsville, Texas.

[C]

We have the winner of our contest. It's the naming the baby with the Gladys Porter Zoo. And it's the baby gorilla. Tell us about it.

[B]

Well, every morning I like to get up and run on my treadmill and I listen to music and I was listening to a particular reggae song and the performer kept singing this word, Harambe, Harambe. And halfway through the song she explained what it was.

[A]

And it means to pull together, to

[B]

help each other, sharing and caring and come together. Wow.

[C]

So hence the name. And we've got the baby gorilla right there. Dan, that's the child you just named Arambe. Arambe is her name. Once again. What does it mean again?

[A]

It means pulling together, coming together, sharing and caring about one another.

[C]

And what is it like, so Swahili.

[A]

It's a Swahili word.

[C]

Oh, wow. This is so, so fantastic. Congratulations to you.

[A]

A free membership.

[C]

They put so much spice on the name the first time.

[A]

This is. They rolled that r. This seems like

[B]

a different Strokes reboot that should never have aired.

[A]

Like Harambe, A very special episode of Pablo Torre finds out. Describe. Describe. Please describe.

[C]

He looks like a cutie pie. He's just. He looks a little confused. He's just a baby. A tiny little baby. Harambe.

[B]

He looks cute the way all of you are lying and saying Punch looked. Remember that little monkey?

[C]

Excuse me, I don't think we need to.

[B]

That's what's in the file. Punch was a federal agent.

[C]

So cute.

[B]

Notice he's disappeared. We haven't heard from Punch in months.

[C]

Well, Punch made a human friend, and then I think everything was. There was also a lot of misinformation around Punch that got really weird really quick.

[B]

He got into it. He found a girlfriend. He went, all right.

[C]

He said, oh, shoot. Oh, shoot.

[A]

I think we can all agree that Punch the monkey was no Harambe. Lots of imitators.

[C]

No duplicators.

[B]

Ego.

[A]

And by the way, the name meaning pulling together, coming together, sharing and caring

[C]

about it, how could it mean all those things?

[A]

Well, this is a. An ape that was named after a song by Bob Marley's widow. You know, Harangue means Harambe.

[B]

First of all, rambling. He bl.

[A]

From South Africa.

[C]

Harambe relates to us brothers and sisters.

[B]

Harambe means working together, pulling together, pulling

[A]

together, caring and sharing, reaching out, touching your brothers.

[C]

I'd like to apologize because she does say it means all those things.

[D]

Footnote.

[C]

I needed to hear it from the primary source.

[A]

No, it's. That's. That's the due diligence that we want.

[C]

I trust that guy to be getting it right. I trust her.

[A]

I should say that Harambe. For those not familiar with his personal species, western lowland silverback gorilla shares about 98.3% of its DNA with us humans.

[C]

That's a lot of DNA.

[A]

It's a lot. Same species. If you've ever seen Coco, another famous gorilla who learn sign language. That's also a western lowland silverback gorilla. And yeah, I love to eat fruit. You know, one expert we talked to, like in western lowland gorillas in the wild, to basically vegetarians living in a salad bowl. And so Harambe, born May 27, 1999, to mother Kayla with a younger brother, Mokoko. This is an uplifting story you know, it worries me. This is the story of Harambe, whose I think name, image and likeness from the very beginning was very intentional of value to the local news in Brownsville, Texas. Less uplifting is this article, Katie, in your folder from the Houston chronicle in early 2002.

[C]

Okay, this headline says chlorine gas kills gorillas at Valley Zoo. Firefighters found three gorillas unconscious and several others suffering from chlorine inhalation. Three western lowland gorillas died and a fourth was in serious condition Sunday after a chlorine gas leak at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. The gorillas were all groggy and unresponsive. The zoo identified the gorillas killed as 10 year old Kayla, her 11 month old son Mokoko, and a 2 year old female named Uzuri.

[A]

This was Harambe's family. Oh, wow.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

It was a toxic gas leak. A space heater melted near a chlorine tank at the zoo. His mom Kayla, his little brother Mokoko, another pregnant gorilla. Yeah, Harami was like two and a half. And this AP story, Katie, the next one from the memorial service, it, it puts again, just like a more vivid sense of what Harambe was like growing up.

[C]

Three gorillas remembered during service at Brownsville Zoo. This is a quote. To see the gorillas so sad, just sitting there, you can tell that there is a sorrow, there is something that they are missing. Mayor Blanca S. Vela said grief counselors have visited with zookeepers and, and those close to the animals. Oh, my God.

[A]

Notably, no, no gorilla therapists.

[C]

The grief counselor is a human grief counselor.

[A]

For the zookeepers. For the zookeepers and those close to the animals. Okay, but again, the question of like, okay, so what, what, what do we

[C]

do with their grief?

[A]

What do we do with them? What is in the mind of a gorilla?

[B]

Was Harambe just there staring at the caskets, just like crying?

[A]

Also, 2013, Harambe's father dies of heart disease. Two years later, 2015, teenage Harambe is on the move. This according to a press release. Desus.

[C]

Oh, in your folder. Your turn.

[A]

From the Cincinnati Zoo,

[B]

new rookie silverback and gorilla world for spring training sports story.

[A]

This is sports. He's traded from Texas to Cincinnati, Ohio as the Cincinnati Zoo's curator of primates who declined our interview requests described in this introductory video.

[B]

At 16 years old as Harambe is now, it was time for him to kind of go out and find his way elsewhere, just like a young silverback might do in the wild. For many years, young silverbacks roam around by themselves until they can get Enough size and enough experience to impress females to come and join him. So Harambe coming here is kind of like a rookie silverback in training. We got a couple of good females for him to be with. And it's going to be a fun summer of introductions for Harambe, Chewy and Mara.

[A]

Okay, all right. NBA drafty, a couple fun females for

[C]

him to just to see.

[A]

Spring trading before mating season is what brings Harambe to Cincinnati. And the press release by the way, desus further clarifies the process.

[B]

Harambe, large for his age at 419 pounds, will be placed in a social group with two 19 year old females. A typical gorilla group includes one silverback male and several females.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[B]

So the three will be together for social interaction and companionship.

[C]

Okay, that's one way to put it.

[A]

Okay. The polycule, Gorilla, gorilla, gorilla, polycule.

[B]

Just monkeys with the party foal. You coming through today.

[A]

Living in a compound grombe was not quite at breeding maturity just yet. He was 16. But he's a star prospect. He is measurables really strong. Spring 2015, it's April. And said prospect encounters a certain sports photographer.

[C]

Oh, that's right.

[A]

Turned weed horticulturalist. Yes. Who had recently gotten out of federal prison after growing what he told us was 450 marijuana plants. Although Jeff did want to make something very clear about that experience.

[D]

Yeah, I pled guilty and went to a federal prison camp in West Virginia and spent ten and a half months there. I literally had my own golf cart, I could drive down the road. So the point is all of us in the camp were always on our best behavior. It was like, hey guys, we got this place and there was no guards, there was no nothing. We were just there and it's just stay out of trouble guys and we'll leave you alone. And you know, it was the, the best possible prison experience anybody could have. And it's still horrible.

[A]

When Jeff got out, he wanted to go where all people do with newfound freedom, suburban Cincinnati. And he found freedom in his camera. And so one day during the spring training of 2015, Jeff goes to the Cincinnati Zoo and he begins to take photos at Gorilla World.

[D]

And somebody from the zoo came over to me and they said, oh, did you get a picture of that? I'm like, yeah, maybe.

[A]

And just like how he became a sports photographer back at the school paper, he gets enlisted. The photos were so good. And the zoo had staff photographers who were getting paid that they said to Jeff, who was working while living off of his insurance payout, he's now 53 years old, whether he would work for free. And Jeff becomes a sports photographer turned weed horticulturalist turned volunteer guerrilla photographer. And it's important to note, for legal reasons, Katie, in your folder that we reviewed Jeff's contract with the zoo by

[C]

providing or allowing use of photographic files by the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. No one ever talks about the Botanical garden.

[B]

You know, shout out to the gardens

[C]

you represent, acknowledge and warrant that said files are your original work and that you are the sole owner of all rights, title, and interests. Oh, I see what's happening here. Okay, so basically, signed in this contract, they said these things belong to you. You signing here means they belong to you, which means if somebody were to get access to them, it would be him who would need to give you the authorization to. To air it somewhere.

[A]

Ooh, Jeff keeps receipts. Again, Name, image, and likeness.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And on April 15, 2015, Jeff's camera discovers a glorious prospect.

[B]

Oh.

[C]

Oh, shut out. This is Harambe.

[A]

This is the photo, the one that, yes, we've been seeing, that has been viral all over the world many times over. It was Harambe in mating season. This is the same Harambe photo from Jeff's minor league baseball jersey on an NFL player's custom cleats, on all those memes, on all the RIP Harambe T shirts. And he took it when Harambe was 16 years old on the first day they met. Wow. On opening day.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And so when you see that photo and you think of Harambe's backstory, you know, I. I think it's fair to assume, like, yo, this is psychology of a damaged, broken gorilla who is orphaned because a ghastly killed his family and plunged his life into total chaos, forcing him across the country to be used as, like, this, I don't know, reproduction vehicle.

[B]

This is, like, the worst version of the Blind side I've ever seen. Like.

[A]

And so what becomes clear is that Harambe, in Jeff's view, wasn't personally so much searching for a mate for all this stuff that would attend the life of a glorious prospect. Harambe wanted a friend, and I was

[D]

like, damn it, Harambe, I'll hang out with you. I'll be. I'll be your friend. And so that's kind of how it started. And so Rambe and I started hanging out. Whenever I would go, I'd stop by. And remembering my prison experience, I remembered how great it was to get a visitor. If I could cheer you up for a few minutes in your day, make it better, you know, I'd go and hang out with him. And he seemed to bond with me. He, you know, would come up to me as close as he could and, you know, pose for me and do all kinds of things for me.

[B]

You know, he said, remember my presentation? I thought he was going to bring, like, a cup of soup and a deodorant to Harvey. Like, yo, go get out my og.

[A]

I do want to acknowledge the proud tradition in American culture and in Hollywood entertainment of, like, guerrilla psychological analysis. So King Kong, Girls in the Mist, Congo, Mighty Joe Young. We have often sort of like, thought and talked about, like, what are these gorillas up to? And what Jeff says is that Harambe

[D]

was really smart, but it also made his life, I think, more hard knowing, you know, the situation he was stuck in. He was quiet. He didn't like to be yelled at. For sure, anybody would yell at him. He'd walk away, you know, he'd go and hide, you know, go into his caves. Like, you know, I don't have to go up with this.

[A]

Harambe, by the way, as the subject in Jeff's sort of photographic line of sight, the same camera that he'd used to photograph athletes. Harambe could pose.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. You sure? Oh, my God.

[A]

Oh, look at the arch.

[C]

I don't know what I'm allowed to say, but.

[B]

I thought you said he was a silver back gorilla. Not a bad damn cuz.

[A]

Damn, damn, damn.

[B]

All right, the camera is on.

[C]

Yeah, this angle, the back, shoulders. It's the shoulders and the arms that make me feel safe. Yeah, it's just me.

[B]

Yeah. Tyra sending him to the next round.

[A]

Yes, sturdy, sturdy.

[C]

A sturdy, remarkable gorilla. Oh, Harambe, pop that thigh. That's what Myrtle does when she wants you to scratch the inside of her thigh. That's her favorite. She'll just pop it out like that.

[A]

Look, I should say Jeff admits that it is again, it is odd that he became friends with a gorilla. He acknowledges that.

[C]

Good. Oh, good.

[A]

But the thing that helps explain it, that I didn't know, of course, until we went so deep in the. In the weeds on this. When Harambe was orphaned, he actually wound up being taken in by humans. His caretakers at the zoo in Texas, the ones that cut his umbilical cord, bottle fed him, changed his diaper. Humans like this is. This is who dealt with him for his whole life. And so we've been asking ourselves the question, like, how do you fact check this friendship with a gorilla? And in Jeff's view, his scouting report, teenage Harambe was, quote, a natural born ham.

[D]

He ignored his two Girlfriends. They would be on different sides of the exhibit. He didn't seem interested in them at all. He reminded me of my Uncle Jim in so many ways where, you know, he was my favorite uncle. And growing up, he was always the. The uncle that gave us kids, you know, always teasing us. And, you know, the fun uncle, you know, the one in Harambe seemed like that where he, you know, he would do things to try and get me excited or to make, you know, expressions that, you know, just to get a reaction out of me. And I say, we talked all the time, you know, and he just screamed like there was no tomorrow.

[C]

This is really sweet. I keep forgetting Harambe definitely dies, so this isn't going to stay happy the whole time.

[A]

Well, what happens to get to the point Katie is making, is that Jeff and Harambe are clearly friends and they, according to Jeff, they loved each other. And so one day exactly 10 years ago, this is Saturday, May 28, 2016. This is the day after Harambe's 17th birthday.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Jeff pulled up as he often did to Guerrilla World.

[D]

And as I'm taking pictures, all of a sudden this boy grabs my shirt and pulls me. And I look over and he's standing on the fence, on top of the fence, and he almost fell in. I looked at him, I said, get down. You know, screamed at the kid. And then dad is standing right behind him, and he looks at me, giving me this, you know, dagger eyes, like, how dare you yell at my kid? It happened so often. I had this standard speech. I said, sir, you don't understand. We're not worried about the gorilla killing your kid. Your kid is going to be dead when he falls 15ft onto the cement down there.

[A]

So that was the day Harambe died. But that was not even the kid. That was earlier in the morning. And Jeff McCurry was there and intervened and stopped it. But then that afternoon, Jeff McCurry, volunteer sports photographer, left. He had to go to a basketball game. His friend's teenage daughter, it turned out, would be future WNBA player for the Toronto Tempo. Lexi held shout out. And Jeff had to go take his camera elsewhere. And so Jeff heard the news pretty much like everybody else.

[D]

So I went home and I'm downloading the pictures and going through them, and I have the TV on in the background, the news on. And all of a sudden it came on that they killed Harambe. I'm like, what? You know, it's like everybody asked, how'd you learn? I was like, I learned just like everybody else on the news.

[A]

Very Emotional time at the Cincinnati Zoo. It's unprecedented. We have never had to kill a dangerous animal in the middle of an emergency.

[B]

Emergency situation, Cincinnati, 91 1.

[A]

Hi, my size.

[B]

Out in the zoo exhibit at the gorilla.

[A]

There's a male gorilla standing over him.

[B]

I need someone to contact the zoo, please.

[A]

When it was determined that the child was being injured, not potentially injured, but was being injured both down in the

[B]

mo and then up on the ground,

[A]

that we had to make a decision to shoot him, and we did. What was your reaction when you first saw that?

[D]

Heartbroken. I mean, just like you. You feel whenever a friend of yours died, you just like, no, I can't believe I'm not going to be able to spend time with them ever again. And it was, you know, then to find out that not only is he gone, but, you know, you literally shot him in the forehead. I'm like, oh, man, that's. That's just awful. At least it's quick. But I learned that from the car wreck. I don't have a fear of dying because I don't remember any of it. You wake up later going, what the hell happened? So I. I'm comfortable that Harambe, his last thought was, I've got this little boy and I'm protecting him. And then he was. You know, the lights were turned off.

[C]

Jeez.

[A]

You may remember the debate about this. You know, I was like, who do you blame right now? I should say that amid all the literal and figurative litigation, like, no charges were filed against the mom, no charges filed against the zoo. Prosecutors concluded that their use of lethal force was necessary. And the aforementioned mom posted on Facebook a couple days later, thanking bystanders.

[C]

As a society, we are quick to judge how a parent could take their eyes off of their child. And if anyone knows me, I keep a tight watch on my kids. Accidents happened. But I am thankful that the right people were in the right place today. Thank you to everyone that helped me and my son.

[A]

She deleted that post later, as, of course, one does. The memes set in, the whirlwind sets in. And we did request an interview with the mother, the father, the boy in question. And a family spokesperson said, quote, they're not interested in doing any interviews at this point. Actually, never, which is fair. The boy, though, I'm happy to report,

[C]

if you say, graduated college, I'm leaving. That's. He can't be that big already.

[B]

Have you watched this show? It can't be that simple. He's about to drop something that's gonna blow our brain. You know, who the boy grew up to be. Wemby. And you'd be like, all right, that makes sense. That makes sense. All right, Pablo.

[A]

I am merely here to say he is now a sophomore in high school.

[C]

Okay?

[A]

He's an athlete. He does play basketball. He also plays football, and he runs track. Multi sport athlete, most relevantly, perhaps, to this program. He even wrote a sports story for the school's news website. Whoa.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

A sports journalist whose privacy we will respect, of course. As for the Cincinnati Zoo, they did not respond to our interview requests. And as for Jeff, he says that even though, of course, he lost his friend and he feels insane, you know, regret at not being able to say goodbye, he does not blame the mom of the kid in question. He says the exhibit should have been more safeguarded, and it was a zoo's

[D]

fault because we knew that the kids were running wild, so that exhibit had to be bulletproof, and it wasn't. And so that I've always thought, in my opinion, that made it all the zoo's fault and none of the mother's fault. She had three other kids. She looked over the other kids, and this little boy, he got through the barrier that should have been bigger and stronger. And, you know, it's. It happens so often.

[A]

And so for the sake of being fair and balanced, we reached out to independent guerrilla experts. Of course, there are lots of theories, like, why couldn't you have tranquilized him? Yeah. What if you, like, tried to offer a trade, like, you know, here's some food. Maybe he would have given up the kid and. And sort of relinquished, you know, his hold on him. Whether a trade of fruit for boy would have worked, I've done it.

[B]

Fruit for boy. There used to be a party on the Lower east side back when New York was a real city.

[A]

Meanwhile, Ron McGill.

[D]

My name's Ron McGill. Until just about a week ago, I was the communications director, goodwill ambassador at Zoo Miami. I retired after 46 years.

[A]

Friend of the show. Friend of the Dan Lebatard show, friend of Metal Arc Media. He says that, yeah, that. That. That would not have worked.

[D]

Well, let's try to negotiate. Let's see if we can bargain. Let's see if we can give him some bananas and he'll give us the boy.

[B]

This is just a stupidity.

[D]

You can't do that.

[A]

And unfortunately, shooting him in the head

[C]

was the only way.

[B]

What's even sadder is Harembe was just protecting that little boy. The wish. He wished someone protected him when he was a little boy.

[C]

No. Are you doing that on Purpose. That's very sad to me.

[B]

Very sad.

[A]

And so what Jeff McCurry is left to do as Harambe's friend, and again, the guy who has this contract and these photographs is protect his friend's name, image, and likeness. He was surprised, of course, by the virality of it. He wasn't trying to cash in. In fact, his whole thing as the de facto representative of Harambe's estate is to make sure that people honored him and did not use his nil against what Harambe would have wanted. And so this photo, which got shared an estimated 25 billion times, this is the thing he trademarked. He also trademarked Harambe's name. Jeff McCurry is the guy who possesses all of this nil. And in fact, when he saw that, pardon my take was making all this money off of this t shirt, Jeff McCurry sent a legal notice.

[D]

We agreed to a confidential settlement, and they stopped selling them because they did not have permission. We're both very happy with the settlement is what I can say.

[A]

Which led us to, of course, seek necessarily a response from PFD commenter Big Cat and their producer, Hank Lockwood.

[B]

Just a little fill in on what happened in the summer 2016 when Hank made those T shirts. This podcast probably wouldn't exist to this day if that gorilla hadn't gotten shot. But then Hank, being the savvy marketer that he is, jumped on the opportunity.

[D]

Yeah, I just wanted to make a

[A]

T shirt, a funny T shirt to

[B]

wear to a music festival.

[A]

Our T shirt guy sent it to

[D]

me three weeks too late, so I

[A]

didn't even get to do that.

[D]

But I took a picture and I

[A]

didn't know what I created.

[B]

I'm recusing myself of this conversation because I think it's bull Pablo that you are trying to capitalize off a dead gorilla. So, yeah, I'm not gonna comment anymore. You're trying to get your. Your views and your clicks off of gorilla.

[D]

We would never do that.

[B]

I'm doing clicks and likes the Internet game, but I. I think, Hank, you came to terms the photographer. We had a mutual agreement, and everybody's happy, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, the guy that took the Rhombe

[D]

pictures, I'm not gonna say anything on

[C]

the record because I don't know the answer to that.

[B]

I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say on the record, it's been 10 years.

[C]

Years.

[B]

So facts are fuzzy. I'm gonna say, you know, 10 years ago today, it was a very sad day in our lives, but we move forward. And we find new animals to capitalize off and exploit. Yeah. So follow my dog on Instagram, please. Now watch pft.

[A]

I gotta say, like, on some level, they are fundamentally, of course, correct. Right? Like the speed with which I responded to the voicemail we got. True.

[C]

I smell waiting by the phone.

[A]

I smelled the clicks and the likes. The Internet, the intention economy, social media. I of course recognize that people couldn't get enough Harambe. And now there's the promise of. Wait a minute. I could get exclusive, bespoke, secret Harambe. Especially because these are the videos that According to Jeff McCurry, the Cincinnati Zoo tried to keep quiet for the last decade. And look, I promised you guys that we would deliver on the lost Harambe tapes. And so for the last four months, we have been vetting. Yes, the weirdest whistleblower in sports podcast history. And so I present to you. Now, do I have the.

[C]

Hold on.

[A]

I gotta get my DVD player out. As I plug in a physical DVD player, this is gonna be a video

[B]

of Harambe smoking a cigar. Just. He's like, if you're watching this, I'm dead.

[C]

Do you know how to use this? Why do you look so new here?

[A]

That's because. When's the last time use.

[C]

Very recently, actually, I made a friend of mine watch the first season of Halt and Catch Fire, which I have on dvd.

[A]

Hold on.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Oh. And so we present to you the video of the world's most famous gorilla that was killed on the world's most viral zoo video. Without any comment, but filmed with great care by Harambe's personal photographer and apparent best friend.

[C]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Into his own hand.

[B]

He is a. Oh, my God.

[C]

He just pulled a poop out of his butt.

[B]

Yeah, a very nice cob sized poop.

[C]

Green. Do not eat it.

[B]

Yeah, he's protein maxing.

[C]

Oh, God. Oh, my God.

[B]

See, a lot of people don't realize you create your own fiber. You don't have to go buy it from a store.

[C]

The circle of life.

[B]

There we go.

[C]

Holding it in his mouth while he does other stuff. Like it's a breakfast bar.

[B]

There we go. We used to be real eaters.

[C]

Like, it's a nutrigrain. On his way out of the house for work, he had it hanging out of his mouth.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It's important to always get a granola bar in before you work out.

[A]

Jesus Christ.

[B]

Harambe ate his whole life. It's only fit and it went out like this. Not wrong. But in the forbidden spinach wrap.

[A]

It is so like, the shape of it is like.

[C]

It's like a froyo. It's like a poopberry. It's like a.

[E]

The way he eats a little and

[C]

then kind of like rolls it around in the front of his mouth like it's a piece of gum.

[B]

You're like, good mouth feel. No. And the thing is like he's gleefully eating it like he's at a Michelin star restaurant. He's like, he's like, you know, do you me, you know, like a little. Little sauce on the side. I don't know what a bord sauce. Perhaps Harembe got his own little portable empanada.

[A]

Mama.

[C]

Do their taste buds work the same as ours?

[A]

I mean, 98. Over 98% of the same genetic code.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

And I see the resemblance a bit.

[B]

That's fresh silverback.

[C]

There's parts that I see.

[A]

This is from seven months before Harambe's demise. His death, all the way up until two months before that could have been

[C]

the final he ate.

[A]

And I think it's important as we are again trying to figure out why. And what was Harambe thinking to hear from Jeff.

[D]

So Harambe had this behavior that he would do regularly and he would only do it when we were alone because other people would scream at him and he didn't like screaming. And I wouldn't scream at him out loud. I'd scream at him and, you know, mentally, telepathically. God damn it, Rami, stop. I don't want to see this. So anyway, one day I'm there and the lighting is just perfect. I'm there all alone. Harambes comes right up to me and he does this behavior. And so I was like, all right, you off. I'll videotape it. So I videotaped him doing this and looking at it and I was like, oh, man, this is amazing. And I can't believe this. And so I pack up my stuff and I'm leaving and I ran into a vp. I said, hey, hey, come here, come here. I need to show you this video. I just took. Harambe, you're not going to believe this. I don't know when it will happen or what, but this is going to make Harambe the most famous gorilla in the world when people see this video. And I showed it to him and he just kind of went white.

[A]

I cannot stress enough how much the zoo really did not want this.

[C]

I can imagine.

[A]

If you could read the email, please, from a communications executive at the Cincinnati Zoo three months after Harambe's death.

[C]

Hi, Jeff, a while ago we talked about the possibility of you selling your Harambe videos and donating the proceeds. That is very generous. And before everything spiraled out of control, seemed like a good idea. Now, with all the memes and global interest in Harambe, we would really not like the videos to be made public. They would only make media attention unbearable and prolong this or ordeal for all of us. So we would appreciate it if you did not move forward with plans to make the videos available. Thanks for all that you do for us. We really appreciate your time and talent. I've even stopped taking photos around here because I know yours will be better. Wow, thanks. And now listen, I do kind of see where they're coming from on that. That if everyone wants to know already about Harambe and what they find out is that he's eaten it straight from the tap, I just think that it would have become an even, somehow, even bigger phenomenon.

[A]

The scientific term for the practice of eating your own is nasty.

[B]

It's called nasty.

[C]

Let's guess the root word. It's gotta be apathy. Is the end of it in apathy, Prophagy. Okay, close.

[A]

Prophecy. C O P R O P H E Y and scientific papers, research. Independent gorilla experts say this is rare in the wild, but gorillas in captivity will more frequently eat their own out of stress.

[C]

That's even. I do not like that he's only eating his own because we locked him up.

[A]

When we showed the poop tapes to independent experts, aforementioned, a panel of gorilla scientists such as Dr. Ian Redmond. My name's Ian Redmond.

[B]

I'm a naturalist by birth, a biologist

[D]

by training, and a conservationist by necessity.

[A]

He said, look, either Harambe could have used more food and was just hungry, or Harambe just wanted to get a reaction amid all this stress and anxiety. Harambe wanted to capture the attention of humans.

[D]

Possibly the reaction of the humans to that might reinforce that, oh, when I do this, the humans all make funny

[A]

noises and, you know, so the human.

[D]

That's gross response.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Might be a curious feedback mechanism. When I do this, they do that. So I'll do it again and watch

[A]

them do it again.

[D]

Do that again.

[C]

A ham. He did say that. He's a ham. And what is the that is that if humans fully committed to the bit. The hammiest thing that guy at a wedding could do is poop in his hand in the middle of the dance floor and then start eating it.

[B]

That's the next level crowd work. Right?

[C]

There it is.

[A]

Is this gorilla psychologically broken and or is this gorilla expressing something that we too can recognize? It's important to see that Jeff, in his point of view, had a personal perspective.

[D]

The zoo is always talking about how they want to do all this enrichment for the animals and this and that and the other. It's like, yeah, that's great, you're trying, but they're in prison. There's just nothing you can do to change that. That's not healthy for them, that's not good for them. It's mentally damaging to anybody that has a brain, any creature that has a brain.

[B]

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[A]

And so look, I am not trying to turn this into a big like anti zoo thing. I'm actually like conflicted about like what, what do we do? What do we do with this? Right? Like here is this video that we got and I could not be more enthusiastic about immediately seizing upon it and I'm trying To be journalistically fair and again, climb into the mind of a gorilla and figure out, like, do we show this? How do we contextualize it? How do we scientifically sort of validate this? And I was thinking about, like, okay, so this gorilla that was stressed and anxious and cooped up and was misread by all sorts of people. What he was trying to do, if nothing else, what everybody agrees on, on all sides of the story, is that he was trying to get the attention of humans. And I was like, I know what that feels like. The whole idea of, like, this is a story about an animal that shares over 98% of its DNA with humans. And what this video says is not, you should think of Harambe differently necessarily. It's that you should maybe see him like we kind of see ourselves.

[C]

Is Pablo about to eat his own?

[B]

It's not even that. It's not even that. You know what? Like, I usually don't beef. I get this invite from Pablo.

[C]

I know.

[B]

Thought I was a friend. Thought I was gonna come in here. A good time, Some chuckles maybe same. Katie's gonna be there. Great time. Always great. My soul has been crushed.

[C]

I know.

[B]

I have no idea what I'm gonna see when I look in the mirror now. I'm just gonna be in a blank stare on the train. I don't know if I should cry, be outraged. Am I a prison abolitionist? Are gorillas not getting enough? I don't know what's going on right now. Do I have to do something for inner city guerrillas? Do I gotta find the kid that fell in this. Why would you put this mental anguish on me?

[C]

Why is this coming across my desk?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Also, you had to read more.

[C]

I know.

[B]

So it was like, he can't be. He can't handle this information. So now, now we're like, they don't even trust me now I'm gonna go

[A]

home and eat my own.

[C]

Now I'm Sad about a 10 years ago tragedy again. God forbid anybody goes like, what's wrong with you? You having a tough day? And I have to go harembe. Please don't ask. Because would you believe it's Harambe? And they would go, geez, she's one of those, aye, aye, aye, get over it. You know what I mean? But it's. You brought this all freshly back up. What if he's just a goof? He was just goofing. He was just trying to be a silly goof to get you to laugh. All Harambe wanted was for you to laugh. And for that little Kid to please get out of. He was like, I'm get you out of here. I gotta drag you, but get out of here. You don't want to be stuck in here. You'll start eating your own butt. Get out. He was probably trying to take the kid out so the kid would not have to eat his own poop for his own enjoyment. And what did that get him? A bullet between the eyes.

[A]

And the thing I am left realizing as Jeff offers one more thought, is that apparently there is something that he did want to tell Harambe.

[D]

I always, you know, wish I could tell Harambe. It's like, damn, you became. You know, everybody loved you so much you broke the Internet.

[C]

Harambe was a complex animal with a really tragic backstory that just wanted to make people laugh.

[B]

We didn't know him. But in learning about him, do we not learn more about ourselves?

[C]

Whoa.

[B]

And we have to ask ourselves this question. What do you think it takes to real primate? Oh, I mean, he was eating good, too. He was eating good too. So, you know, it was like a neutral loaf. It probably has some good chunks in there, I'm sure. Not too much sodium, you know.

[C]

Oh, yeah. A good balance.

[B]

Good balance. Maybe some chutney.

[A]

I don't know how to end this episode.

[B]

I think that was it right there.

[A]

This has been pablo torre finds out. A meadowlark media production. And I'll talk to you next time. Okay, Caller one wins courtside seats to tonight's game.

[B]

What?

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I won floor seats. You did? I've been calling for 13 months. Wait, Chris. Yes. I finally did it. What are you gonna wear? Men's Wearhouse. They've got today's looks for any occasion,

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and I need to look like a celebrity.

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Don't want to stick out.

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Exactly. They've got Chill Flex by Kenneth Cole,

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Not a chance. Hit any. Look for every occasion at Men's Wearhouse. Love the way you look.

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