You can always have another child, right?
Who's to blame for Harambe the Gorilla death?
- Thread starter robfosters
- Start date
You can always have another child, right?
I've seen a video where he drags the child twice. Yes to us humans it seems a bit rough or perhaps violent, but whilst these are intelligent creatures, it isn't going to have the level of thought where it thinks "ooo I better not drag this toddler in such a way he might get hurt". That doesn't necessarily mean however that its actions were intentionally aggressive or violent. By no means am I anything near to a specialist in animal behaviour, but I came across a post somewhere by a conservationist (I think..) who said they can move their own young in such a way. Also in my personal (unprofessional) opinion, it seems at one stage after standing the child up he tries to push him forwards as if to try and get him walking on his own and then resorts to dragging him again when the child doesn't move.
I would say that unfortunately once this situation had developed then the keepers probably did have to shoot the gorilla, due to lack of a real alternative, however I don't necessarily think Harambe was being aggressive or violent.
Soldato
So it would appear that the dad at least is not a responsible person:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-emerges-father-lengthy-criminal-history.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-emerges-father-lengthy-criminal-history.html
Caporegime
That's the way, thank the most important (person?) in all of this, God.
**** off with that.
Soldato
Who's to blame? I'd probably answer "it was an accident", but the idea of an accident seems to have fallen out of all use these days - blame must always be assigned.
So if I must pick, then the parent. Some think the zoo must be proof against all misbehaviour by visitors but I don't think that's either reasonable nor plausible without impacting both animal welfare and visitor enjoyment.
The following statement is depressing:
Well yes. Everybody is at risk all of the time. Risk is a constant. But how great was it? Gorillas are essentially people with weird learning disabilities. They're capable of the same emotions as humans, many of the same social relationships as humans and the difference is their level of learning ability and lack of sophisticated language (they can learn some basic language, though). They're people, albeit not people like us. Is there reason to suppose that the gorilla was going to hurt the child? From the footage I've seen, he pulls the child up in the moat and then mostly just stands over it watching it. He was shot and killed as a precaution. Which might be justifiable by the zoo, but is a terrible tragedy, nonetheless.
So I guess I'd blame the parent, though I still lean towards accident however out of fashion that term is. But I'd save a little blame for the zoo. I can see why they did it, but they could have got the keeper in there who knows the gorillas (and who know the keeper) to try and retrieve the child without killing the gorilla. It would have required some bravery because they knew that they could be in trouble for not just shooting the gorilla. But that's okay by me. We can't run the world making every decision based on blame. And I suspect that's what went through the zoo staff's mind: that they'd like to go in and try to retrieve the child, but that if the gorilla did harm the child, the zoo would be held responsible for not killing the gorilla right away. And it's a shame to kill the gorilla because you're worried about being held responsible.
So if I must pick, then the parent. Some think the zoo must be proof against all misbehaviour by visitors but I don't think that's either reasonable nor plausible without impacting both animal welfare and visitor enjoyment.
The following statement is depressing:
Well yes. Everybody is at risk all of the time. Risk is a constant. But how great was it? Gorillas are essentially people with weird learning disabilities. They're capable of the same emotions as humans, many of the same social relationships as humans and the difference is their level of learning ability and lack of sophisticated language (they can learn some basic language, though). They're people, albeit not people like us. Is there reason to suppose that the gorilla was going to hurt the child? From the footage I've seen, he pulls the child up in the moat and then mostly just stands over it watching it. He was shot and killed as a precaution. Which might be justifiable by the zoo, but is a terrible tragedy, nonetheless.
So I guess I'd blame the parent, though I still lean towards accident however out of fashion that term is. But I'd save a little blame for the zoo. I can see why they did it, but they could have got the keeper in there who knows the gorillas (and who know the keeper) to try and retrieve the child without killing the gorilla. It would have required some bravery because they knew that they could be in trouble for not just shooting the gorilla. But that's okay by me. We can't run the world making every decision based on blame. And I suspect that's what went through the zoo staff's mind: that they'd like to go in and try to retrieve the child, but that if the gorilla did harm the child, the zoo would be held responsible for not killing the gorilla right away. And it's a shame to kill the gorilla because you're worried about being held responsible.
Soldato
So you're alright with the huge numbers of people who criticize (such as myself) who are vegetarian?
they did try that, they got the two other gorillas out thanks to the keeper's calling them over, the male wouldn't leave the child and when the screams of the crowd spooked him he dragged the child - for sure, he likely wasn't trying to do any damage to the kid intentionally but he was spooked and tranquilizing him would be a huge risk for the kid... the keepers hadn't managed to persuade him to come and the Zoo would be in a load more trouble if they just stood there with the security team ready as some child continued to be dragged around and possibly killed.
Soldato
Of course not, I'd be devestated but the world does not revolve around me. I am but a very tiny unimportant part of it, and again, why would i matter over the greater good of a species.
Frankly if I am unable to look after the first, maybe I shouldn't have another.
not really too surprising...
also:
so he's already told the mother he wants to go in there... so much for the people in this thread trying to defend the parents and trying the old line about non-parents not understanding
Soldato
I understand the entire time of the child being in there before the gorilla was killed to be about ten minutes. That doesn't seem long to me to explore other options as the gorilla did not appear to be mistreating the child during this time.
They erred on the side of caution. Whether or not that is a good thing is hard to tell. I'm arguing that simply saying "there was a risk" is not an adequate argument in favour shooting the gorilla by itself. Risk is always there. It's how high that risk is that matters. The consequence of erring on the side of caution in this instance is that a gorilla was shot dead. Erring on the side of caution is not in itself an intrinsically good thing. And we'll never really know if it was the right course of action in this case but given the dire consequence of doing so and the lack of evidence this gorilla wanted to harm the infant, I question doing so.
Soldato
Sadly I have to agree. I remember the Jersey incident well, shooting wasn't an option and the Gorilla seemed to be trying to comfort the child rather than handle him. In fact he probably saved the boys life by chasing off the others.
I remember the zoo keepers story at Jersey. Nobody had ever been in with the Gorillas and he said he just grabbed a bit of stick not really thinking it was going to be much use. Extreme bravery however it could have been very different if Jambo had chosen to defend his territory and charge.
This latest incident somebody had to make a very quick difficult decision. If they had tried to stun or tranquillize the animal it could have well fallen on the boy or killed him before the sedation set in.
A horrible situation, obviously the parents are to blame for not supervising the child, but also the zoo need to shoulder some of the blame for having enclosures that can be accessed by children.
As a parent myself I confess I have turned my back for a second and turned around to see my son when he was younger scaling or chinning up one thing or another.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03wqkc7
Surprisingly insightful - interesting point about how the dominant gorilla might actually be protecting the rest of its group (rather than the face value caring for the child) from a new element in their environment and result in an unpredictable result as they try to process the situation.
Surprisingly insightful - interesting point about how the dominant gorilla might actually be protecting the rest of its group (rather than the face value caring for the child) from a new element in their environment and result in an unpredictable result as they try to process the situation.
Did you do a course on Mumsnet for that?
You're being a bit too black and white...
I like meat and cows aren't endangered so I will eat them - although I agree people should eat less meat because of it's impact on the environment. At least the animal is killed for something... unlike this endangered Gorilla which was shot because a toddler's parents couldn't look after their own child.
There's not enough time to get upset about everything, in the same way that a death of a complete stranger is not as emotional as a loved one dying. Does that make people hypocrites.. I don't think so.
We can't grieve for everything.
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Soldato
Hazel O'Connor said it best....
YEARS AGO
YEARS AGO
According to the link I posted unlike the other gorillas and unlike the gorilla in this case Jambo had been brought up with a higher level of contact with humans and was more predictable personality wise.
If people are outraged by the zoo killing the gorilla, imagine the outrage if they had let the gorilla kill the child.
I'm normally the first to criticise parents but I'll be honest there's no way I would expect a child to get into any enclosure in a zoo. Ever.
The answer is obvious really. [1] The enclosure should never have been accessible by a small child, no matter how curious/hyperactive. It simply should not be possible. [2] The parents should shoulder some blame for letting their child run off.Daily Fail said:
I'm normally the first to criticise parents but I'll be honest there's no way I would expect a child to get into any enclosure in a zoo. Ever.