A 3 year old boy crawled through a fence and fell into the gorilla enclosure moat at the Cincinnati zoo. After the boy was dragged violently around by the male gorilla (pictured), the zoo personnel had to kill the gorilla to save the boy. How horrible!
If this had been an adult who jumped into the enclosure on purpose, I'd say let the gorillas have him, but this was a dumb kid, obviously not being watched by what I assume to be idiot parents/guardians.
This happens all the time at zoos around the world. How is it possible that every zoo by now, hasn't secured all dangerous animal enclosures against such entrances? How did this happen?
12 comments:
I agree with you that a blameless child is different from the would be suicide in Chile - far different.
Yeah, I question the competence of the zoo and of the parents, equally. I mean who doesn't watch a 3 year old pretty much every second?
So I saw the footage of the gorilla, he was actually protecting the child from the adults yelling outside the enclosure. Unless there was some footage of him being violent TO the child, then I think the zoo personnel jumped the gun......pun intended, when they shot him.
Apparently they were afraid that he would get woozy and topple onto the kid if they tranq'ed him, so they shot him.
The video makes me more convinced that the stupid mother should have been paying closer attention.
I read that the video showing him dragging the kid violently was not shown, but who knows?
Well he did drag the kid by the arm through the water, but it's the exact same motion and demeanor that you see when parent gorillas grab their young by the arm and drag it to safety in the jungle. He dragged the kid through maybe 8inches of water when the adults outside the enclosure started yelling.
After watching that, I'm convinced he was instinctively protecting the kid from the loud yelling and screaming.
Why couldn't the zoo keepers tranq the gorilla, then if he got violent during the 2 minutes it took for him to lie down and go to sleep, shoot him. I think they interpreted the actions of the gorilla incorrectly, plus I'll bet the head of the zoo told them to shoot immediately fearing a certain law suit should the kid be hurt or killed.
I fear you're exactly right. The 10% chance of being sued by a dead kid's parents doomed the gorilla.
For what it's worth, Jack Hanna says they made the right call. He knows more about this than I do.
Because the kid is alive and safe now, the appropriate response when asked is to side with the decision that was made....everybody wants to be on the winning side....or in this case the decision that resulted in a good outcome for the kid.
They say that something like 25% of the population will lie about who they voted for in a presidential election, just so they can be thought of as being on the winning team.
Not calling Jack Hanna a liar, just observing that most people, with the benefit of hindsight, will say they picked the winning side.
I never felt any compulsion to lie and say I voted for Obama!!!
Definitely a step too far.
I never felt any compulsion to lie and say I voted.
You don't vote, do you Isaac? I don't blame you.....I consider sitting at home every election and once in a while I do just that.
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