Shinning down a lamp-post, the tiny gorilla almost seems to be laughing as he dodges past his keeper at an Istanbul zoo he's called home since being rescued from traffickers.

He was five months old when he was discovered, days before Christmas, crammed into a wooden crate in the cargo section of a Turkish Airlines plane en route from Nigeria to Thailand, his terrified face making headlines across Turkey and beyond.

Nearly nine months on and Zeytin (Turkish for olive), as he was named, is an entirely different creature from the traumatised infant brought to Polonezkoy Zoo in the hills outside Istanbul to recover from his trafficking ordeal.

His recovery means he will be soon sent back to Nigeria where he began his journey, Turkish officials say.

Zeytin is believed to be a Western lowland gorilla, a critically endangered subspecies native to the rain forests of central Africa whose numbers have plummeted in recent decades because of deforestation, hunting and disease.

West and Central Africa are major sources of trafficking, with a 2013 UN environment programme report -- the latest official figures available -- saying 3,174........

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