Who's to blame for Harambe the Gorilla death?

robfosters said:
The gorilla doesn't really look like he wants to hurt the kid. Lets face it, if a silverback wanted to kill a 4 year old, he could do it in about 5 seconds flat.
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Thats the problem - it could have all gone badly wrong so fast. Made me sad though as it looked at face value as if the gorilla's instincts were protective.

Without more information I'm kind of inclined to blame the parents - I'd be absolutely on the ball if I was around potentially dangerous animals with young children of my own - sure sometimes momentary lapses happen but I'd bet it wasn't really the case here.
 
If both the gorilla and child were armed with an open carry weapon none of this would have happened
 
The previous two times this has happened both in jersey zoo and another American zoo, the gorillas have shown protective instincts. Jambo stroked the boy who fell in in Jersey and in the US one, a female gorilla picked the child up and carried him to a hatch where the keepers could get him. So gorillas have plenty of form for protecting children. There's a word for it that I have read before, but I can't put my finger on what it is.
 
They had no option but to shoot it. As brutal as it seem, they couldn't risk the potential actions of the gorilla.

ie, if they tried to ask for it back, it may have decided to keep half of the kid :/

Smokey Deza said:
Why not tranq it? Surely you could follow up with a bullet if the tranq didn't work as intended.

Seems like overkill tbh.
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Too risky, it could panic and lash out.


A sad day indeed for the keepers who looked after it :(
 
robfosters said:
The previous two times this has happened both in jersey zoo and another American zoo, the gorillas have shown protective instincts. Jambo stroked the boy who fell in in Jersey and in the US one, a female gorilla picked the child up and carried him to a hatch where the keepers could get him. So gorillas have plenty of form for protecting children. There's a word for it that I have read before, but I can't put my finger on what it is.
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"Humanity".

Something we lack these days.
 
ianh said:
The trouble is that while the Zoo has to do everything "reasonable" to prevent entry, there will always be some way a person will get access if they absolutely want to, unless they fully enclosed the habitat in a perspex box or similar, which'll never happen due to cost and animal welfare.
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There's a significant difference between a exhibit that a child can simply clamber into and one that someone needs to make a special and conscious effort to enter.
You absolutely could enclose a zoo area in 'perspex' and some are or partially are. Many zoo exhibits are in areas that are appropriately completely sealed from the public (like the Komodo Dragons at London Zoo).
Zoos over the years have moved to more open exhibits, and it seems in this case the zoo in question has gone too far.
 
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It's the stupid parents fault.

I don't get why the keepers couldn't have tranquillised the gorilla to get the kid out.

:(
 
knip said:
I don't get why the keepers couldn't have tranquillised the gorilla to get the kid out.
:(
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It's explained in the article. A tranquilizer dart does not have immediate affect and an animal or human being unexpectedly being hit by a dart goes into a panic. A panicked gorilla even with no ill intent is a massive mound of power flailing about.
 
Smokey Deza said:
Why not tranq it? Surely you could follow up with a bullet if the tranq didn't work as intended.

Seems like overkill tbh.
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because as soon as the Zoo does that (when the option to shoot it was there too) then they're liable for the consequences* and one dead gorilla is probably a less bad result than an injured or dead kid and a multi million dollar lawsuit

having said that the Zoo should sue the parents
 
If only zoo animals could sue the zoo, options would be more balanced, all about money.

A silverback could kill an adult, nevermind a kid, at will. Couldn't see any aggression in what the silverback was doing, another poor animal killed, just like those lions killed to protect the loon recently in another zoo. :(

The kid's parents should be forced to financially help replace that poor silverback.
 
knip said:
It's the stupid parents fault.

I don't get why the keepers couldn't have tranquillised the gorilla to get the kid out.

:(
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Somewhere they said didn't have powerful enough tranquillisers on hand to take out an animal of that size quickly and it would have taken longer to get to their fast acting tranquillisers than the lethal option.

A silverback can literally tear an adult male in 2 in seconds never mind a child so not something you can really take chances with.
 
Witnesses say the parents were using their phones at the time, so should definitely be facing neglect charges. In fact one headline said they were.
 
Rroff said:
Somewhere they said didn't have powerful enough tranquillisers on hand to take out an animal of that size quickly and it would have taken longer to get to their fast acting tranquillisers than the lethal option.

A silverback can literally tear an adult male in 2 in seconds never mind a child so not something you can really take chances with.
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In seconds? He was in there a lot longer than that.... Seemed to be protecting the kid and the screaming idiots were freaking it out.

Why did they not keep sufficient size tranquillisers in the room next to the cage? That's a basic H&S given.

So idiot parents and idiot zookeepers.... So just idiot Americans and arrogance and guns?
 
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