Who's to blame for Harambe the Gorilla death?

LiE · 31 May 2016 at 12:10

Lets be fair, a Gorilla isn't exactly a harmless beast. They are very powerful and dangerous. I think it was, sadly, the only course of action.

cheesyboy · 31 May 2016 at 12:16

Scam said:
If people are outraged by the zoo killing the gorilla, imagine the outrage if they had let the gorilla kill the child.

Sadly, I believe there would actually be substantially less outrage. Many people are quite resentful of their fellow human - even (or especially?) kids.

It's no surprise to see this sort of reaction when you get charities like The Donkey Sanctuary (donkeys ffs!) getting more donations than The Samaritans, for example.

Outcast · 31 May 2016 at 12:20

Not that it would've ever happened (My children were on reins at that age out of the garden) but as a Parent I would've immediately jumped into the enclosure and do my best to distract him.

Yes I would sacrifice myself to save my children, not stand there screaming and thereby confusing the animal even more.

Ayahuasca · 31 May 2016 at 12:24

Outcast said:
Not that it would've ever happened (My children were on reins at that age out of the garden) but as a Parent I would've immediately jumped into the enclosure and do my best to distract him.

Seen a few people say this but I'd be very surprised how many people actually would, the child it doesn't see as a threat, a fully grown man it would. Nice and dignified way to go having your limbs and genitals ripped off by a 400lb beast while your wife etc looks on and it probably wouldn't change the chances of saving your child, in fact it could make things worse.

Third Opinion · 31 May 2016 at 12:24

Rroff said:
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.

I thought they said nobody had ever been in the enclosure with the Gorilla's.

Still makes me giggle, the zoo keeper with a 1/2 meter bit of stick facing up to that charging Silver back.

Personally I would have bricked it and flown back up that wall. Not stand my ground and tap him on the shoulder as he thundered past.

estebanrey · 31 May 2016 at 12:27

cheesyboy said:
Sadly, I believe there would actually be substantially less outrage. Many people are quite resentful of their fellow human - even (or especially?) kids.

It's not about being resentful but not being species-based selfish.

Being purely objective, it would have been better for the child to eat the kid rather being shot (if we're going with that false dichotomy anyway) due to the fact Silverback Gorillas are endangered whereas we no lack of toddlers.

We don't need any protection, the gorillas do.

wordy · 31 May 2016 at 12:50

The zoo should've thrown the parents in to distract the Gorilla while they rescued the child. Then if they're still alive & they can be arsed, rescue them.

FloppyPoppy · 31 May 2016 at 12:52

Find it funny that people are saying the gorilla was looking after the boy.... Y'all gorilla behavioural experts now? That thing would have ripped his head off his shoulders without batting a eye.

Guardians absolutely to blame for the death. It was necessary for the boy but should have never happened.

Haggisman · 31 May 2016 at 13:17

Mr Jack said:
There's a frankly unrealistic expectation of parental oversight in this thread. Parents cannot watch their children every second of every day

No, but you'd hope that while out in a public area, surrounded by potentially dangerous animals, they might make at least a token effort?

Kids are awfully good at getting into things they shouldn't and as a parent you should be aware of that, particularly in dangerous environments.

CREATIVE!11 said:
Like seriously, if you want to pretend you care about **** don't be selective about the stuff to get outraged about. At least be consistent in your viewpoints.

Where do you draw the line about consistency? Are people who eat meat not allowed to get "outraged" about people being needlessly killed, because after all we're just animals...

Besides:

Gorillas are endangered, cows/pigs/chickens/etc. are not.
Cows/pigs/chickens/etc. are tasty, gorillas are (probably) not.
Cows/pigs/chickens/etc. are killed to feed people, what's going to happen to this gorilla? Probably burned/buried.
Gorillas are significantly more intelligent than cows/pigs/chickens/etc. (have you ever tried to teach a pig sign-language? What a waste of 3 hours that was!!).

And really, is it that difficult to get your (horribly flawed) point across without having to resort swearing :confused:

dowie · 31 May 2016 at 13:24

h4rm0ny said:
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.

there was a high risk when the gorilla started dragging the child, he could easily be seriously harmed or killed unintentionally at that point and that is likely why they had to act... like I said they did initially try to call the gorillas away - there were three in there after all and two of them did respond

LeeUK · 31 May 2016 at 13:29

Zoos are disgusting cruel places that serve no purpose other than to make profits for the owners. Yes I understand the staff may be genuine caring people that look after the animals, but zoos only exist for one thing - profit.

chroniclard · 31 May 2016 at 13:34

I would be asking how a 4 year old could get into a gorilla enclosure in the first place. Seems like inadequate security to me.

CREATIVE!11 · 31 May 2016 at 13:42

Haggisman said:
No, but you'd hope that while out in a public area, surrounded by potentially dangerous animals, they might make at least a token effort?

Kids are awfully good at getting into things they shouldn't and as a parent you should be aware of that, particularly in dangerous environments.

Where do you draw the line about consistency? Are people who eat meat not allowed to get "outraged" about people being needlessly killed, because after all we're just animals...

Besides:

Gorillas are endangered, cows/pigs/chickens/etc. are not.

Cows/pigs/chickens/etc. are tasty, gorillas are (probably) not.

Cows/pigs/chickens/etc. are killed to feed people, what's going to happen to this gorilla? Probably burned/buried.

Gorillas are significantly more intelligent than cows/pigs/chickens/etc. (have you ever tried to teach a pig sign-language? What a waste of 3 hours that was!!).

And really, is it that difficult to get your (horribly flawed) point across without having to resort swearing

Actually, in Africa they'll happily eat gorilla meat. It's part of the bush meat trade. So I imagine they're pretty tasty I guess in some form....

If you want to talk about flawed points I suggest you look closer to home first.

dowie · 31 May 2016 at 13:44

LeeUK said:
Zoos are disgusting cruel places that serve no purpose other than to make profits for the owners. Yes I understand the staff may be genuine caring people that look after the animals, but zoos only exist for one thing - profit.

well that is demonstrably incorrect as a fair few Zoos are operated by charities and not for profit organisations - such as London Zoo (worlds oldest scientific zoo that wasn't initially open to the public)

I believe the zoo in question in this incident is owned by the city of Cincinnati

platypus · 31 May 2016 at 13:52

chaparral said:
Looks like that Gorilla was looking after that child....

If it wanted to harm the child it could have killed it within a few seconds..

Thats exactly what I thought about it as well.

Initially I thought what a pity team americans decided it was necessary to kill the gorilla for that, but then there's a lot of the incident unseen, as according to reports they said he dragged him around for up to 10 minutes?

CREATIVE!11 · 31 May 2016 at 13:55

Best part is people saying "it looks like he was protecting the boy!"

Sure rummy.... the same way it looks like you can cuddle with a bear, then it shreds you to bits and eats you alive....

https://www.facebook.com/amanda.odonoughue/posts/1203379586363094

Probably one of better pieces i've seen written/shared about the incident. If that silver back at any moment decided to flip out. It could have torn that kid in two in a matter of seconds.

Avenged7Fold · 31 May 2016 at 13:57

I think they were scared that the crowd which was getting noisier as they became more panicked by the situation, would spook the gorilla and possibly harm the child. I think the kill was the safest option from a legal standpoint for the zoo.

Haggisman · 31 May 2016 at 14:09

CREATIVE!11 said:
Actually, in Africa they'll happily eat gorilla meat. It's part of the bush meat trade. So I imagine they're pretty tasty I guess in some form....

Fair enough, I've never tried it, hence the "probably", bet it's still not as good as bacon though

CREATIVE!11 said:
If you want to talk about flawed points I suggest you look closer to home first.

Would you care to elaborate on that? I'm guessing you're attempting to claim to have negated the whole of my post by responding to a single bullet point I made which I qualified with the word "probably" :rolleyes:

Mr Jack · 31 May 2016 at 14:18

CREATIVE!11 said:
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.odonoughue/posts/1203379586363094

Probably one of better pieces i've seen written/shared about the incident. If that silver back at any moment decided to flip out. It could have torn that kid in two in a matter of seconds.

That's a really good piece.

4T5 · 31 May 2016 at 14:33

Makes me laugh how it seems now you are s'posed to have some kind of "credentials" before you can comment on things, Well **** You World I have an opinion & I don't give two ***** if I meet your so called Criteria I'll give my opinion whether it's valid or not.

Surprises me that there was enough of a gap for the kid to be able to get in so I think the Zoo is in the wrong there & it also surprises me that the Mother let the kid get far enough away from her for it to be able to get in there as well so for me they're both at fault.