Backlash after Gorilla Shot in Cincinnati Zoo (Updated)

[mduncan50]

This is the best shot I could get of the barrier around the enclosure, but it looks to be pretty standard so my guess would be that it's like this the whole way around. So there is a fence too tall for him to climb over, but to small to climb through, then another fence/shrubbery combo that he'd have to get over somehow in order to fall into the moat. This isn't something that a three or four year old is going to be able to get over in a matter of seconds without anyone being able to stop them. My guess would be that a parent was holding him out so he could get a better look and because they are completely clueless assholes and they dropped him.

I don't know, man. The zoo's I've been to usually has these guys behind thick glass and/or in very deep pit, to ensure situations like this don't happen. This just seems like shoddy design for a gorilla enclosure; They could just bull rush and leap all of that if they get in a crazy enough mood. It happened once over here; The infamous Bokito incident. A woman had spent the last couple of days interacting with him through the glass thinking he liked her, until one day he had enough and while in his outdoor enclosure decided to leap the entire barrier and attack her.

OT: They absolutely made the right call, but this is unfortunately what's going to happen when you put wild animals and humans in this close a proximity to eachother. Accidents happen everywhere, and in the case of a zoo this might mean an animal is going to grab someone.

I think you're underestimating the size of the moat. It's about 15-20' across and at least that far down. Gorillas aren't making that jump.

 

[Saelune]

Its unfortunate what happened, and there have been plenty of times where an animal seemed to have been needlessly killed, but this is definatly a case of fuck off people. Maybe the Gorilla was trying to protect the kid, and then they'd go on an epic adventure as the Gorilla travels across the US trying to bring the boy home...or maybe it would have killed the child, even on accident.

 

[mduncan50]

Its unfortunate what happened, and there have been plenty of times where an animal seemed to have been needlessly killed, but this is definatly a case of fuck off people. Maybe the Gorilla was trying to protect the kid, and then they'd go on an epic adventure as the Gorilla travels across the US trying to bring the boy home...or maybe it would have killed the child, even on accident.

Watching the video I'm actually a little surprised that the kid didn't drown while being whipped around in the water by his leg like that.

 

[LetalisK]

Good. You're on notice, gorillas. Don't get any funny ideas of world domination or we will put your asses down.

 

[mduncan50]

Good. You're on notice, gorillas. Don't get any funny ideas of world domination or we will put your asses down.

50 years from now the ape overlords will point to this as the inciting incident where they stopped pretending to be dumb and started toppling the human governments of the world.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

THE SEXUAL AROUSAL!!

Oh good. I thought it was just me.


For reals though...I'm not sure what should have been done. From what I read initially the gorilla was attacking the kid. Which is not good. And as has been pointed out, tranks would have just pissed it off and a gorilla is more than capable of ripping a kid in half life a phonebook.

But the video doesn't really show the gorilla dragging the kid around mercilessly, but more just dragging the kid out of the water and seemingly protecting it. So a lethal danger to the kid? Ehh...

But then again that raises the question of how to get the kid away from the gorilla, or if the gorilla decides to go apeshit and just kills the kid while trainers are trying to get it him.

Eh...I'm not sure what the correct action should have been. Well, I tell a lie. They should have just thrown a pokeball at the gorilla and sealed it away for a few minutes before releasing it. But for whatever fucking reason Elon Musk hasn't gotten around to creating pokeballs yet.

So I guess we can place the blame squarely on Elon Musk.

 

[lacktheknack]

Human life >>>>>>>>>> gorilla life.

The end.

There's no tidy bow to tie on it, this situation just sucks and there was no way it was ever going to end without sucking. Life plods on.

 

[asinann]

Start charging the families of the people involved in incidents like this the cost of the animals and see how fast this kind of thing stops.

 

[jklinders]

I can't believe I'm even typing this but for once PETA had a point. If there was a secondary enclosure in that pen the kid would not have been in as immediate a danger. They also had their usual blather about keeping animals (that would otherwise have been turned into a carpet in the wild) in captivity but there was actual sound advice there. This happens way more than it should usually as a result of a parent not paying adequate attention but how is it so easy for a kid to get into these enclosures? There is a wildlife park/reserve not far from where i live and it is SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE for a human of any size to get in with the dangerous animal there without significantly tampering with the enclosures there.

Parents should be questioned and maybe charged. Any zoo that uses enclosures that just anyone can stroll into need to question their security. End of.

 

[lacktheknack]

Human life >>>>>>>>>> gorilla life.

The end.

There's no tidy bow to tie on it, this situation just sucks and there was no way it was ever going to end without sucking. Life plods on.

That's where we disagree. Not every human life > every gorilla life. When the ape revolution ensues, I'll gladly show my new overlords your anti-ape rhetoric.

Every, last, one.

I hold human life in very high regard.

 

[lacktheknack]

Start charging the families of the people involved in incidents like this the cost of the animals and see how fast this kind of thing stops.

This is actually a great idea. Let's do this.

 

[lacktheknack]

I can correctly call you a biased anthrocentrist. It doesn't mean much, most humans are.

I happily hold the title. Bias ain't always a bad thing.

 

[the December King]

What a waste.

I'm not infuriated, I'm dismayed.

Human life is always greater, sure, I get it. To humans, of course.

I thought gorillas were intelligent- maybe they could have tried to tempt him with some of his favorite food or something? At least get on the goddamn PA and tell the hysterical masses to shut the fuck up, or there will be bloodshed? Have someone or several someones with some knowledge of the dangerous animals on the 'potentially dangerous' circuit at all times?

Children can be unruly. It's infuriating when they don't listen. But if it's that easy for a three year old to vault into the goddamn enclosure, something is wrong.

 

[thewatergamer]

It sucks that the gorilla had to die, but their is no tranquilizer that would be able to knock it out before it killed the kid, I don't get why anyone is getting angry about this, if you establish proper context, the gorilla was shot in order to prevent a child from being killed, I have several questions, including how the fuck does a kid end up in a gorilla pen, but as far as I'm concerned the zoo staff did the right thing

 

[lacktheknack]

I can correctly call you a biased anthrocentrist. It doesn't mean much, most humans are.

I happily hold the title. Bias ain't always a bad thing.

From the point of view of possibly intelligent nonhumans that we have oppressed, it can be. I have met humans who I would only save after I saved other animals. To say that humans are fundamentally better is such hubris. Nonhuman intelligence is not necessarily worse or lesser. Sentient's rights matter, even if not human.

Unfortunately, none of my reasons for regarding humanity as the greater have a single whit to do with intelligence or sentience and everything to do with pre-distributed value, but I get the feeling that you aren't religious and this argument could go a very depressing direction if it continues further.

 

[Elfgore]

It sucks that the gorilla had to die, but their is no tranquilizer that would be able to knock it out before it killed the kid, I don't get why anyone is getting angry about this, if you establish proper context, the gorilla was shot in order to prevent a child from being killed, I have several questions, including how the fuck does a kid end up in a gorilla pen, but as far as I'm concerned the zoo staff did the right thing

Though I can't speak for everyone angry about this, I can at least speak for myself.

I'm not mad that the gorilla was killed when the situation reached what it did. A human's life takes priority of an animal's. I'm angry because this never should have been a situation in the first place. The Zoo should be re-eventuating their containment procedures and make sure that no visitor, no matter how young or stupid they may be, are able to enter. And I'm mostly angry at the shitty ass mom who at this point should be loosing custody of her child for not properly watching them and endangering their life. She should also be receiving a punch to the face for saying "accidents happen LOL" as a defense for being a shitty mom.

 

[K12]

They should have shot the parents.



But really, I'd hope they could do something else to stop the gorilla aside from killing it.

Unfortunately the gorilla was not "nearby" as the OP said, but it was dragging the child around. If they had tranked it, it would have gotten angry and probably killed the boy before the tranquilizer began to set in, so the zookeepers really only had the one decision, to kill it or let the boy die. And they made the correct decision. As for those parents, they should be charged with child endangerment, animal cruelty, and whatever else can be piled on to remove them from society. They don't deserve to have a child, and they don't deserve freedom. Maybe stick them in the gorilla cage?

Yeah the decision to shoot the gorilla once this scenario happened was probably the best possible option. It's very nice to assume that a big silver back gorilla wouldn't have hurt him and that it was acting kindly but the random anthropomorphised guesses of a bunch of twitter followers is going to be less reliable than the trained response units who made the decision.

It might be true that the Harambe wouldn't have hurt him but if you need to wait until AFTER the gorilla starts attacking before acting then the boy's as good as dead. Human life is much more important (and I'm a vegetarian btw).

I think there's an argument to be had over who's more reponsible: the Zoo for having inadequate enclosures and surveillance or the parents for not watching their child. I don't know enough about the specifics to jump in on either side but no amount of safety and precautions can make accidents like this impossible. The argument that Zoos shouldn't exist at all is also worth considering.

As for tranquilizers, these don't work the way they do in films. A huge animal like a gorilla can take a long time to be go down and could easily panic in the process. Anything chemically powerful enough to knock out a gorilla in the handful of seconds necessary to be safe (without needing to be injected directly into a major artery) would probably kill it or severely brain damage it anyway.

 

[RedDeadFred]

The zookeepers made the right decision, but the parents absolutely need to face serious punishment. They should, at the very least, be fined the cost of the gorilla.

Edit: I don't know how much a gorilla costs, but that could be life ruiningly expensive, so maybe at tad less.

Edit 2: Nevermind, they're way cheaper than I would have though. They can get an idiot fine on top of the gorilla fine.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

I know humans love blame. We feed on it. But we probably dont know how neglectful the parents actually were. Its possible that kid could have hopped over that wall faster then they could have realized what was happening. Not saying it was an "honest" accident, but it could have been.

 

[Recusant]

Why do we still have Zoos?

Anything?

Because without them, a great many more species would be extinct, not only due to those who only survive in captivity, but also from the information we've learned about creatures from captive specimens, and the increased public interest from actually seeing giraffes and knowing that they're not just urban legends.

You're thinking of wildlife reserves.

No, I'm thinking of zoos. Wildlife reserves serve a vital function, but a typical reserve won't be able to give you more than an educated guess as to the population of most of their animals; even the worst zoo in the world will be able to tell you how many rhinos they have. Reserves can and often do provide a better glance at how creatures live in the wild, but that's not all that we need to know- and it's definitely not all that we need to get public opinion on the side of preservation. I'm sure it's a lot more fun to be an animal in a reserve than a zoo, but it's better that some suffer so that the species can survive.