The amateur investors at the Reddit community pulled together in under one week to adopt 3,500 gorillas. Redditors recently used their monetary gains from buying up stock in failing companies to donate to Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, an animal conservation charity.
Redditors, known as r/WallStreetBets (WSB), purposefully disrupts the stock market by purchasing massive amounts of shares from failing companies such as Gamestop, AMC Theatres and the cryptocurrency, DogeCoin, as of recent. WSB generated more than $350,000 within six days to aid in gorilla protection efforts.
President of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, which was first established by wildlife conservation icon Dian Fossey, thanked WSB for their “incredible support.”
“They’ve truly made a difference for our world and shown what can be accomplished when people come together,” Tara Stoinki said. “When we save gorillas and we save forests, we save our world.”
While the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund receives enough funds to adopt 20 new gorillas in a week, the massive charitable donation in such a short period of time was a pleasant surprise to Stoinki.
“The support that has come to our organization, as well as others, is amazing,” Stoinki said. “One of the biggest challenges in conservation is just that there’s not enough funding for the challenges we face on the ground.”
According to The Guardian, WSB were also able to adopt pangolins, lynx, wolves, bears, bulls, sea life, and polar bears.
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