Graphic images depicting the brutal slayings of two endangered douc langur monkeys have shocked Internet users recently. Many people have expressed their outrage at the appalling acts of cruelty, as well as shown deep compassion for the poor animals in thousands of comments.

The Facebook page of Nguyen Van Quang, who uploaded the photos and admitted he is one of the “slaughterers,” is locked now. But hundreds of people on Facebook, online forums, and newswires continue to throw rocks at the killers, asking the government to bring them to swift justice and calling on the public to protect animals and the environment.

But the horrible story of the primates, which are listed in Vietnam’s Red Book of endangered and threatened species, does not stop there.

One year ago to the day, July 19, 2011, news emerged that local hunters Dao Minh Khach and Nguyen Phuong Tuan shot and disemboweled 16 black-shanked douc langurs at Chua Mountain. Even people at the local police headquarters, in central Ninh Thuan Province’s Ninh Hai District, couldn’t contain their bursts of anger.

If the dead monkeys could have cried like humans, I think they would have uttered words of pain and suffering and outrage before their deaths.

The hunters in Ninh Thuan said it wasn’t difficult to gun down the tribe of monkeys because they’re very faithful. When the chief in the tribe is killed, the rest will not abandon him but instead cluster around their fallen leader.

In a more recent case, police in Quang Nam and Binh Phuoc Provinces seized 31 dried bodies of douc langurs from smugglers between July 8 and July 12. I hope everyone who looks at these photos feels disturbed by the human cruelty.

Accordingly, those in the local online community have said the monkey killers deserve heavy criticism and punishment. This may not help save the ill-fated douc langurs, or their population more broadly, but it does spread awareness about how we can be more humane and better care for the environment.