Rare Gorilla Shot and Killed After Boy Falls Into Enclosure At Zoo

[maniactickler]

Ive heard experts say, they had no reason to believe the gorilla would harm the child. based on that, I would have still gone with the tranquilizers.

 

[Wolf]

Ive heard experts say, they had no reason to believe the gorilla would harm the child. based on that, I would have still gone with the tranquilizers.

There was also no guarantee that he wouldn't harm the child, or that being hit with a tranq would keep him from harming the child before he went down. The zoo made the right decision. They wanted to protect the kid. Not easy, but it was the right decision. It's not like they were happy to kill the gorilla.

 

[Hemmen]

I don't know what's preventing you from hearing sound, but why let your lack of easily available facts stop you from forming an opinion, right?

If you actually do decide to listen, starting at 58 seconds you can hear the kid WAILING in the distance.

But hey, why let actual information get in the way of a quick leap to judgement based on nothing at all. You're probably right that it wasn't terrifying to be dragged by a 400 pound gorilla. I'm sure you'd be as cool as a cucumber, so why expect a four year old to panic.

So much for having a civil discussion and not resorting to personal attacks, then.

Let's be clear about this; maniactickler did not say the kid WAS cool, he said he seemed cool. But since you want to go down the road of hatefulness - stop the exaggeration and twisting of others' words already.

 

[MrMacphisto]

There are people who are picketing the mother's place of employment and asking for it to be boycotted. I'm sure since one of the mother's "friends" screen captured her comments and shared them, death threats from animal activist are imminent But, in the meantime, I also read where she is lining up with her lawyer to sue the zoo. That's the story I was waiting to here. And the only people who win in the long run are the attorneys.

Pretty much. At least we got an entertaining video out of it.

 

[TMF Jeff]

So much for having a civil discussion and not resorting to personal attacks, then.

Let's be clear about this; maniactickler did not say the kid WAS cool, he said he seemed cool. But since you want to go down the road of hatefulness - stop the exaggeration and twisting of others' words already.

What he said was that the kid would probably have been fine as long as he didn't freak out and start screaming.

Maybe his aggressiveness is normal. that's probably how they treat their young. the kid probably would have been fine, as long as he didn't freak out and start screaming. I would have tried the tranquilizers first, with someone there ready to shoot to kill.

But the kid was already freaked out and screaming, right? And he had already been attacked when the gorilla dumped him on his back and dragged him along the ground by the ankle for a pretty good distance, right?

So if someone says "If the kid was calm, he probably wouldn't have been attacked" it makes it pretty clear that that person doesn't actually know that the kid had been attacked and was already freaking out, and doesn't have any interest in finding out what happened before jumping in with an opinion on what everyone should have done differently.

And if he did know what happened, then it's apparently the kids fault that the gorilla got shot, for not remaining superhumanly calm in this situation? I mean, that's what the implication is here right?

That's what got me agitated. He makes these inflammatory comments like tossing a little hand grenade into the middle of a conversation, and then he goes whistling on his merry way. I find it to be borderline trollish, and in this particular case I decided to call him on it because I have strong feelings about people blaming the parents in this situation, to say nothing of managing to blame the four-year-old toddler.

I actually felt like I avoided personal attacks and kept it to attacking the incredibly sloppy "methodology" of having apparently gotten no further than the headline before deciding that it was the kids fault for not remaining calm enough. But I may have crossed the line in how I said it.

 

[desdemona]

For the record, there are edited and unedited of those videos floating around. Some make it look very innocent. That is NOT what was happening. The family has unofficially said they won't sue....and they have made a donation to the zoo and asked others to donate in Harambe's name.

 

[Bohemianne]

I wonder how it was if it's the other way around and the child has died instead... People are always good at blah-blah-blah. It's the lesser evil. What's done is done.

 

[Mitchell]

Jeff is right that it's unrealistic to expect that a small child.. or anyone, for that matter, would remain calm if they were being attacked by a huge gorilla.

Hell, a grown sumo wrestler might well be scared if they were attacked by a gorilla.

The fact is.. because animals, can't speak, we dont always know what their understanding/actions are.. if/when spoken to/asked to/commanded to do something by a human being.

It isnt like we know for a fact that the zookeeper would scream at the gorilla "Put the child down, you're going to hurt the child", that the gorilla would understand his actions, and do as commanded.

For precisely this reason, is the justification of why the zoo felt that they had to shoot to kill the gorilla.

des mentioned about the family not suing.

The legalities/basis for a lawsuit, would be up to a lawyer, as to whether they felt there was just cause to sue, because the zoo didnt live up to its promise to protect it's visitors, and for the pain and suffering of the child and his parents, as a result of the incident.

 

[hoseman2248]

Dude it's a wild animal. Did any of you people hear of the Connecticut face-transplant woman that got her actual face ripped off by a Chimpanzee? Just watching the brief footage of this incident was tough. The gorilla is pulling the kid by his arm like he's a play toy. The gorilla could've severely damaged the child's limbs, broken bones, or serious, if not fatally, caused internal injuries to the child. Did the gorilla do anything wrong? No. It was just performing it's normal instinctive behaviors. Did it have to be killed? Unfortunately, yes, it did. A tranquilizer shot will not immediately knock the animal out, and it could, and possibly would, have resulted in disorientation and aggressive reactions that could've killed or seriously injured the child.

I blame 2 groups here, and neither one are the gorilla. First off, I blame the parent. Don't give the me the crap that children get into mischief when you turn your back for a second. This child did not just get into a gorilla den because the mom turned for 20 seconds to tend to her other crying child. No...this happened because the mother was being negligent, possibly taking selfies and playing on her phone, and ignoring her child for 2-3 minutes as he scaled whatever barricade was set up. So, mom gets the trophy for being the first to be blamed.

Secondly, let's blame the zoo for having such an idiotic setup that could allow for something like this to happen. Any and all enclosed habitats for animals in a zoo should be inaccessible to anyone other than the animal caretakers. All habitats should be set up with the expectation that some idiot parent will ignore their kid as it attempts to access that habit, and should also be prepared to prevent any idiot adult that attempts to access the habitat. It cannot be just assumed that people are generally trustworthy and won't try to do get in. Any and all habitats in a zoo should be inaccessible to anyone other than the proper caretakers, unless zoos enjoy lawsuits and unflattering news stories.

 

[Wolf]

Dude it's a wild animal. Did any of you people hear of the Connecticut face-transplant woman that got her actual face ripped off by a Chimpanzee? Just watching the brief footage of this incident was tough. The gorilla is pulling the kid by his arm like he's a play toy. The gorilla could've severely damaged the child's limbs, broken bones, or serious, if not fatally, caused internal injuries to the child. Did the gorilla do anything wrong? No. It was just performing it's normal instinctive behaviors. Did it have to be killed? Unfortunately, yes, it did. A tranquilizer shot will not immediately knock the animal out, and it could, and possibly would, have resulted in disorientation and aggressive reactions that could've killed or seriously injured the child.

I blame 2 groups here, and neither one are the gorilla. First off, I blame the parent. Don't give the me the crap that children get into mischief when you turn your back for a second. This child did not just get into a gorilla den because the mom turned for 20 seconds to tend to her other crying child. No...this happened because the mother was being negligent, possibly taking selfies and playing on her phone, and ignoring her child for 2-3 minutes as he scaled whatever barricade was set up. So, mom gets the trophy for being the first to be blamed.

Secondly, let's blame the zoo for having such an idiotic setup that could allow for something like this to happen. Any and all enclosed habitats for animals in a zoo should be inaccessible to anyone other than the animal caretakers. All habitats should be set up with the expectation that some idiot parent will ignore their kid as it attempts to access that habit, and should also be prepared to prevent any idiot adult that attempts to access the habitat. It cannot be just assumed that people are generally trustworthy and won't try to do get in. Any and all habitats in a zoo should be inaccessible to anyone other than the proper caretakers, unless zoos enjoy lawsuits and unflattering news stories.

Wow. That is some Hall of Fame level Armchair Quarterbacking, there.

 

[Wolf]

Wolf, you strike me as some clown that likes to troll the forums and take personal attacks at posters. Not wasting my time engaging in a debate with the likes of you. I have a life outside the forum. I suggest you get one too.

That wasn't a personal attack. It was an attack on your post, which was basically you calling everyone involved idiots, pointing fingers and making baseless assumptions and accusations in a failed attempt to seem like you know how to fix everything, with very simple and not-well-thought-out "solutions".
But I don't anything about you personally, except how you post.

 

[Tenebrae]

I like my favorite British journalist Ed West's take on the matter:

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/0...-democracy-is-just-a-step-away-from-mob-rule/

 

[TMF Jeff]

This is their idea of a new, safer fence. It's 42 inches high and is JUST short of being a child-sized ladder. I repeat that this is and always has been clearly the zoos fault.

You can see the previous "security barrier" at 18 seconds.

 

[DontAskJusTckle]

I agree with you that ultimately there's really nobody to "blame." It was obviously something nobody foresaw, because I'm confident that nobody at the zoo ever said "Well, a kid might slip through here but let's just ignore that." But nonetheless, I still would put the responsibility for the incident on the people running the zoo for failing to foresee and prevent this, because that's their implied promise to the public.

I read a proposal for a zoo where the animals were allowed to basically roam free, in segregated areas, and the human visitors were to be kept in windowed tunnels. To me that's by far the safest, to say nothing of most humane, way to handle it - if you absolutely have to have zoos in the first place.

And maybe it's time to rethink the usefulness of zoos anyway. It was one thing when it was 1785 and you would go to a zoo and have your mind blown by the existence of an elephant. But we all know about elephants and apes now, we don't have to cram them into a box for people to gawk at anymore.

The occasional place like the San Diego Zoo, where they're heavily devoted to conservation and education, and at least are making a sincere effort to treat the animals humanely, seems fine to me. But most small local zoos should just shut down once and for all.

I mean, it's the 21st century, so maybe it's time to stop treating living creatures as if they're a form of entertainment.

Totally agree. Most zoos are not good for the animals, especially the big ones like elephants, giraffes, etc. In many cases they have to let the animals go into the wild without the skills they would have naturally developed had they not been captured in first place. So in my opinion it's wrong on a couple of levels at least.

 

[Nedstacey2]

In the hours immediately after that two-year-old boy was snatched by an alligator at Walt Disney World's Grand Floridian resort, it was reported that "[a]t least five other alligators were caught and cut open before they found the killer." I realize this and the Cincinnati Zoo case were quite different situations in several ways, but I found it interesting to hear no similar outcry about all these "innocent" alligators having been needlessly slaughtered.