Gorilla killed at Cincinnati zoo sparks public outcry

[Nah]

This is a few days old and y'all have probably heard about this already but whatever

On May 28th, 2016, a 4 year old boy slipped through the railings and wires of the Cincinnati zoo's western lowland gorilla (an endangered gorilla species) exhibit, and fell into the moat. There he encountered Harambe, a silverback, who dragged the boy through the water. Shortly thereafter the gorilla was shot and killed by zoo staff.

Video of the boy and the gorilla can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfuz7cTDNeI

The death of Harambe quickly became controversial. It brings a lot of things to question such as zoo security measures, the boy's parents (some people even started a petition to hold the parents responsible for the gorilla's death), was there a better way to handle the situation, was the gorilla's intent to harm the boy or not, why the boy even decided to get into the exhibit, etc.

What do you all think?

 

[ShinyUmbreon189]

It's simple, this is a prime example of horrible parental guidance. The mother should of kept attached to her child, there is no excuse for this stupidity, Child Services should take away her child because she is clearly unfit to raise a child if she allows this to happen. The gorilla didn't at all seem aggressive to me, but the gorilla is a wild animal so s/he is very unpredictable and can explode at any given money so they had to take action. But I guess it is what it is, you can't change the past.

 

[gimmepie]

It was a shit situation all around and all the courses of action the staff could have taken all would have posed risks to the child or the gorilla. The staff responded following the established protocol and took the most humane course of action they had. So you can't blame them for the unfortunate death.

The people who can and should be blamed are the parents who clearly did not do a good enough job watching their child and on the administration who clearly did not have a sufficiently safe enclosure.

 

[Biogoji]

Now i'm no expert but would they not have some kind of tranquillizer they could have used instead of lethal force.

 

[Mana1]

Do people really think the parents should be blamed though?

I mean, who here has banged their head or had an accident because a parent has looked away for a few seconds? I'll put money on every parent/child having an incident like that. If the enclosure was lacking security to the point a child could get through it then it's clearly a Zoo problem. Does anyone go to a Zoo and think there's an easy way in to the enclosure? No, we assume its safe for animals not to get out and that people can't get in.

The Mother is, no doubt, beating herself up over it enough. She doesn't need people calling her a shit mother and encouraging the zoo to prosecute her as well.

Now i'm no expert but would they not have some kind of tranquillizer they could have used instead of lethal force.

Tranquilised animals are not knocked out immediately, and can become agitated and violent when first darted.

 

[Omicron]

There is no one to blame here, honestly. Shitty situation, a tragedy really, but there is no one to blame.

The zoo follows the security norms established well and you can't blame the parents either. No situation like that had presented itself in the 130+ years of the zoo.

It's a freak accident that ended in a tragedy.

 

[gimmepie]

I would argue that if you're standing above an enclosure containing a wild animal that one could fall into, you should be watching your child. This wasn't like when you look away for five minutes and your kid falls off the monkey bars, this was something preventable by adequate supervision that clearly was not being given.

 

[donavannj]

I still argue we shouldn't be so hasty in blaming the parents. Unless I somehow missed the part of the article that explained it, what was the mother doing at the time that her child was missing and went straight towards the enclosure? Do we have any information on that, and what took her attention away from the child?

Under no circumstances should you really operate under the assumption that your child is safe alone, but at the same time, we don't know exactly what the mother or father was thinking, or what took their attention away, or really anything like that. It's best to leave it as just an unfortunate tragedy.

Regardless of what distracted her (conversation or otherwise), the odds that it was more important than keeping an eye on her 3 year old are pretty slim. She signed up to raise the kid by choosing to give birth to or adopt the kid. She needed to remember her surroundings and realize that a 3 year old can vanish on his/her own if you don't maintain a constant vigilance in a busy public place like a zoo. There's more than just the danger of him falling into an enclosure at a zoo, after all.

 

[Mana1]

I would argue that if you're standing above an enclosure containing a wild animal that one could fall into, you should be watching your child. This wasn't like when you look away for five minutes and your kid falls off the monkey bars, this was something preventable by adequate supervision that clearly was not being given.

I don't think any parent would take their child to a zoo if they thought their kid could somehow slip through security and get inside. It's ludicrous to think that any parent would consider that happening - its the first occurrence ever at this place which further cements the idea of 'safety'.

Sure, parents could probably do with being extra vigilant sometimes. But in this case, the thing that happened shouldn't have been able to happen. If I released 500 children in to a zoo and didn't watch them, they shouldn't be able to get into an enclosure.

... or do you disagree with that too?

 

[gimmepie]

I don't think any parent would take their child to a zoo if they thought their kid could somehow slip through security and get inside. It's ludicrous to think that any parent would consider that happening - its the first occurrence ever at this place which further cements the idea of 'safety'.

Sure, parents could probably do with being extra vigilant sometimes. But in this case, the thing that happened shouldn't have been able to happen. If I released 500 children in to a zoo and didn't watch them, they shouldn't be able to get into an enclosure.

... or do you disagree with that too?

No that part I fully agree with. There is definitely a safety issue at that zoo that needs to be fixed. One incident is one too many.

 

[donavannj]

I don't think any parent would take their child to a zoo if they thought their kid could somehow slip through security and get inside. It's ludicrous to think that any parent would consider that happening - its the first occurrence ever at this place which further cements the idea of 'safety'.

Sure, parents could probably do with being extra vigilant sometimes. But in this case, the thing that happened shouldn't have been able to happen. If I released 500 children in to a zoo and didn't watch them, they shouldn't be able to get into an enclosure.

... or do you disagree with that too?

This gets into regulations on enclosure standards, which the zoo apparently has met, which would mean there needs to be a change from the national federal government level on what standards to require for zoo enclosures. Those probably do need to change.

People will still somehow find ways to get into enclosures even with far stricter standards, though.

 

[Nihilego]

What makes it any more the parents' fault than the zoo's fault? When you go somewhere where dangerous animals are being kept, the assumption is that they're held securely - which means both that they cannot get out and that you cannot get in. Zoos are absolutely full of kids that want to get closer to animals and its their responsibility to be aware of this and to make sure it this doesn't happen.

Don't get me wrong, you should always be watching your kid while you're out in public. I'm not arguing against that; certainly, there was for one reason or another a lack of responsibility shown by the parents. But what I am saying is that this incident, although facilitated by the parents' lack of attention, should not even have been even physically possible.

Regarding their decision to shoot the gorilla, I'm completely behind it. We can only speculate on how the gorilla was going to act but we know for a fact that the child's life was potentially at risk, and no animal's life is more valuable than a human's.

Now i'm no expert but would they not have some kind of tranquillizer they could have used instead of lethal force.

Maybe they could have, but it's worth considering the time taken for a tranquiliser to set in. Most tranquilisers used on animals take several minutes to exert their full effect, and I'd assume that this could be much longer for a big animal like a gorilla. It's not really like in movies etc. where you shoot it with a dart and it just drops to the ground. It would, of course, have been better for the gorilla but far more dangerous for the child.

 

[Omicron]

Maybe they could have, but it's worth considering the time taken for a tranquiliser to set in. Most tranquilisers used on animals take several minutes to exert their full effect, and I'd assume that this could be much longer for a big animal like a gorilla. It's not really like in movies etc. where you shoot it with a dart and it just drops to the ground. It would, of course, have been better for the gorilla but far more dangerous for the child.

Not only that, many animals react violently to the tranquilizers as a side effect. The gorilla could have easily killed the kid because of that.

 

[Kanzler]

Silverback gorillas can be fucking brutal, especially if male. They're extremely muscular, so even if it wasn't aggressive to the boy, it could still cause serious damage because it doesn't know its own strength. Shooting it was the right decision.

The boy went under a rail, through wires and over a moat wall to get into the enclosure, according to the zoo.

Sounds like something's wrong with the zoo if none of the three obstacle could stop the boy. Maybe the parent was distracted, but I hope this shines a light on how stupid and irresponsible children can be and an important lesson for anybody thinking about kids. 4 year olds are perfectly capable of lying and if he had made up his mind to go touch the gorilla, then he would have waited for the perfect moment and use that split-second opportunity to slip under a rail.

 

[Omicron]

Silverback gorillas can be ****ing brutal, especially if male. They're extremely muscular, so even if it wasn't aggressive to the boy, it could still cause serious damage because it doesn't know its own strength. Shooting it was the right decision.

All Silverbacks are male, haha. That's the name given mostly to troop leaders but could be used to refer to males over 12 years of age in general.

 

[Frequency]

There have been incidents where a kid has fallen into a pit with a Gorilla in it and nothing happened in it. Meanwhile, I haven't found enough of them where a kid is actually being hurt/killed by a gorilla when they fall in it.

Example A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-CMxMv34_A&feature=youtu.be

Example B: https://abcnews.go.com/US/gorilla-carries-year-boy-safety-fell-enclosure-1996/story?id=39479586

For those that are lazy, Jambo in example A waited for help, and clearly showed no signs of injuring this kid, and in Example B, back in '96, Binti Jua carried a kid who also fell to the doors where the zookeepers were close to help the kid.

The thing to keep in mind is that Gorillas are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. It wasn't a aligator pit, it wasn't a bear pit, it wasn't a lion's den, it wasn't any animal that we could have been sure that the kid would have been in danger. So no, I don't think the kill was justified, and while I'm not going to question the parenting here cause I just don't feel like it (if anything, the Zoo needs to make sure that falling into a pit of animals can not happen as MUCH as possible), it does need to be said that if a close eye was being kept on your child. a situation like this would not have happened at all anyway, regardless of any excuse. What happened to holding your kids hands so they don't stroll off when you're out and about in public?

I understand the "well rather safe than sorry" and the "what ifs" but the odds that the kid was safe regardless is pretty high. Hell, the vids/pictures kinda hint towards the kid not being in any immediate danger, because let's be honest, if the kid was in danger, he would have been dead the instant he fell into the pit.

 

[Frequency]

I also just find it sad we place ourselves above another animal automatically.

THIS.

"Let's put ourselves, animals, above other animals!"

Makes me sad that an animal had to die because of, for all intensive purposes of conversation, an instance of lack of competence.

 

[Omicron]

Let's not pretend we're animal behaviour experts here. Gorillas are known for infanticide, the gorilla could have gotten angry and killed the child at any second.

No one is more devastated about the results of all this than the zookeepeers that had to shoot him. They acted on what is the standard procedure for these events.

It is a tragedy. It is devastating. If you are interested, truly care and are able to, donate towards the conservation of gorillas. It will go a longer way.

 

[Pebbles]

MKAY
hold on

somebody tell me this, because i cannot watch an animal getting shot, im high sensitive and when i see animal abuse i cry instantly, it touches me too much -_-
do you actually see the gorilla HURT the kid? as in bite, attack, throwing around in the air , punching, pulling etc?
what i just saw was basically the animal taking him for a rough swim.....

look i can understand they want to protect the HUMAN and all that .... but if the animal is not attacking the kid then why the fuck kill it?
animals do not mean any harm most of the time... the gorilla probably thought he got a new ''toy'' or maybe some ''living meat to play with'' but still
if it is not showing off agressive behaviour towards the kid, wtf is the problem

after all, it is not the gorillas fault or problem the fucking parents dont pay attention and the kid falls down or something

that fucking stupid ass zoo should of shoot something that put the animal to sleep but not kill it
@£$%$&*&(* actions like these make me mad
and here is why...

why is it RIGHT/OK
to shoot an animal dead like THIS, in zoo situations especially, when supposedly a human is in danger (yes i know gorillas are big animals that can easily kill you if they wanted) and it is all fine because as long as the human is safe and sound....
BUT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.... for example, when an animal is in danger because people are hunting them for their awesomeness, you are not allowed to save it and kill the human who is hunting them...
and then why, as result you fucking end up in jail for that?

just in general basically... why is it ok for us to kill animals just like that when they are a danger for humankind but the other way around, not many care that much for animals, to protect them from ACTUALL evilness and harm (aka humans).... :|

gorilla did not deserve to die, even if it did attack the kid
end of story. it is not the fault of the animal the kid ended up there, it is not like the gorilla grabbed the kid himself and got him down there right and then hurted him on purpose
so fuck you zoo people>:(
​

 

[Mana1]

@Hakumen, both previous examples are irrelevant really. The first one shows no contact and the second shows a maternal instinct kicking in.

Meanwhile, this Gorilla immediately rushed over and began to play quite violently. It may be play, but we humans are pretty fragile when compared to a muscular male gorilla.

If we waited for the Gorilla to get more violent we'd have ended up with two deaths. This solution was the only way to guarantee the child lived. Sad but true.


Edit/ @Electra,

Wait what? You'd rather the kid died over the gorilla? I can tell you disapprove of Zoos but that's not really the issue here. A child should ALWAYS take priority over a gorilla.

If we were talking hunter v gorilla perhaps I could find some common ground with your thinking, but... Wow.