Zoo kills gorilla, people outraged

[T.O.M.]

I'm sure many have heard about this by now.

http://m.wlwt.com/news/police-responding-incident-at-cincinnati-zoo/39773436

Long story short.  Kid gets through fencing, falls in with gorillas.  17 year old 400 lb. ale gorilla takes kid for a drag.  Tosses kid around.  Zoo has DART (Dangerous Animal Reaction Team) shoot the gorilla.  Kid suffered minor injuries.  People think (a) mom should be prosecuted for neglect/child endangering for letting kid get away, (b)  zoo and/or mom should be held liable for death of gorilla, (c)  zoo should loser accreditation for not darting gorilla, (d) zoo should be sued out of existence for having such a dangerous display that a little kid could penetrate with ease.

I grew up in Cincinnati.   Been to that zoo and that exhibit many times.  No sane person would do what the kid did, which involved falling 20 feet or so into that moat. Exhibit has been open 38 year with no prior problem.   Where's the negligence?

Kids run away from parents at places like zoos.  It happens.  From the limited info I know, I don't see neglect.

As for the gorilla,  it's a damn shame.  They made a tough call.  Darting could have created more danger.  But come on folks, if it's a choice between the kid and the gorilla...no brainer.

Discuss

[Fly320s]

Zoo:      1
Gorilla:  0
SJW:  -10

Pretty cut and dried, I think.

[Ben]

My rambling take:

Firstly, as you said, it's between a kid and the gorilla, so kind of a no-brainer.

The only video snippets I saw made it look almost like the gorilla was protecting the boy. That's me anthropomorphizing, but I have to wonder what would have happened if there wasn't a crowd of people all yelling and screaming and agitating the gorilla? Perhaps that would have been a point at which they could have used tranqulizers?

The zoo made the best decision they could given the circumstances. It's funny, I saw some comments about how it, "Took them nearly ten minutes to do anything!" Because they always keep gorilla snipers handy just for these instances (or would that be guerilla snipers?).

I'm not sure the mom is completely blameless.

Lastly, it's between a kid and a gorilla, so kind of a no-brainer. If it were between the gorilla and an adult human who went into the cage on purpose, I'd be rooting for the gorilla.

[dm1333]

Jack Hannah says killing the gorilla was the right call.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/gorilla-shot-cincinnati-zoo-killed-boy-intervention-expert/story?id=39478421

[zxcvbob]

If it were between the gorilla and an adult human who went into the cage on purpose, I'd be rooting for the gorilla.

+1  The zoo was in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.  They had no good options, and they took the least bad one.

I also have no problem believing the gorilla rescued the boy from the moat, and then got agitated and confused by all the people yelling.

Send mom a bill for whatever a gorilla is worth.    She's the one most at fault here, but I can't even blame her all that much without knowing more details.  Sometimes *expletive deleted*it just happens.  Especially with preschoolers.

[Ben]

Send mom a bill for whatever a gorilla is worth.    She's the one most at fault here, but I can't even blame her all that much without knowing more details.  Sometimes *expletive deleted*it just happens.  Especially with preschoolers.

Yeah, that's why I weighed in as "not sure". If she's a responsible mom, she's blameless because who can watch a kid every second, and kids are going to do stupid things sometimes. If she's some kind of free range mom like the ones you see in the Walmart on the one cultural side, or at the Trader Joe's at the other cultural side, then I think there's some blame to be placed.

[Kingcreek]

If mom can't teach junior to heel he should be on a leash.
I'm ok with the zoo pulling trigger because that gorilla situation could have gone bad so fast that nothing could have saved junior and nobody really knew what the 400 pound primate was thinking.

[BlueStarLizzard]

It did look like the gorilla wanted to care for the boy and was agitated by the screaming. There was another incident (Pittsburgh?) where a female gorilla picked up a child that had fallen in and was injured and carried it to her keepers. Lot's of big scary critters that will maul an adult are often much nicer to pups of any species they encounter.
Unfortunately, gorilla's are not capable of understanding that taking care of little hairless apes that fall into their enclosures is not quiet the same as taking care of their own babies, which is why the child really was in danger, IMHO.

It's sad that they had to shoot him, but they didn't have another option. Even if they could have afforded the time it would take for the tranquilizers to set in, darting him would have likely agitated him even more and made the situation even worse.

From the way I see it, seems like it was just a shitty situation all the way around and playing the blame game is both futile and unnecessary.  Mom may be more at fault or maybe not, but we can't tell and toddlers seem to have a death wish anyway.

[zxcvbob]

It does raise the question of whether primates should be in a zoo in the first place.  Although can they survive in the wild now without "help" from zoos?  If not, should they survive?  (not easy questions)

[SteveS]

I have read several accounts that suggest the parent wasn't neglectful. 4 year olds can be very quick and impulsive, so I can certainly imagine a situation where a kid could get away from an observant parent. I don't see why the zoo or the parent should be liable for the death of the gorilla. It was an unfortunate situation, but the gorilla was certainly agitated and acting violent towards the kid. I think they made the right call.

I don't see a need for anyone to sue anyone, at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if the frail of the kid sued the zoo for his injuries.

[Andiron]

They make new morons every day...   



Tough call, and not one I'd want to make as a Zoo admin. 

[zxcvbob]

The gorilla didn't ask to be there.

[JN01]

The local Cincinnati station had coverage of protesters at the zoo, one of the nitwits commenting on how the lives of the gorilla and the child were of equal value.  Another had a sign "All animal lives matter".   I wonder if BLM will comment on the sign, the juxtaposition of black lives and gorillas has to be racist.

[Ben]

The local Cincinnati station had coverage of protesters at the zoo, one of the nitwits commenting on how the lives of the gorilla and the child were of equal value.  Another had a sign "All animal lives matter".   I wonder if BLM will comment on the sign, the juxtaposition of black lives and gorillas has to be racist.

What's funny is that yesterday before the facts were known (the boy was black), a BLM loudmouth had actually complained about a gorilla being killed "to protect white life".

[Andiron]

What's funny is that yesterday before the facts were known (the boy was black), a BLM loudmouth had actually complained about a gorilla being killed "to protect white life".

Shocked,  SHOCKED I tell you,  to discover ignorant assholery being perpetrated by the BLM goons...

[BlueStarLizzard]

What's funny is that yesterday before the facts were known (the boy was black), a BLM loudmouth had actually complained about a gorilla being killed "to protect white life".

When I read that to Dad, he went "wait... What?" so I reread it. He was completely silent for about a minute and then changed the subject.

I think the sheer stupidity of it caused him to freeze and need a reboot...

[never_retreat]

Dart the kid and gorilla. If the gorilla does not pass out fast enough he will loose interest in the kid that's not moving.

[Neemi]

A couple of articles I've seen on it said that the boy told his mom he wanted to go swimming with the gorillas. She told him NO.

I've met some 4 year olds that are sneaky enough to pretend that they'll listen - and then bolt the first chance they get so they can do what they wanted to anyway. But they don't do it every time, so it's really hard to know when it's gonna happen.

Again, sucky situation for everyone involved. I feel bad for the mom (who's probably beating herself up about the whole thing while simultaneously hugging her boy close knowing he could've died). I feel bad for the zoo, who had to make a choice between two super sucky decisions. And I feel bad for the gorilla, but he's gone to the great banana fields in the sky.

Nobody really wins - but at least the kid got to go home.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Dart the kid and gorilla. If the gorilla does not pass out fast enough he will loose interest in the kid that's not moving.

Kid would have drowned. He was in water.

[Neemi]

Dart the kid and gorilla. If the gorilla does not pass out fast enough he will loose interest in the kid that's not moving.

I'm willing to bet if they didn't keep their gorilla/guerilla SWAT team handy, they probably don't keep a pediatric pharmacologist on hand, either. You give a full gorilla tranquilizer to a kid, I don't even need to know what's in it. I'm gonna bet it'll stop his heart.

[T.O.M.]

Because this is APS, I'll confess that a minute or two after hearing the story the first time, I thought "hmm, wonder what type of rifle and caiber they used?"

 

[BlueStarLizzard]

Because this is APS, I'll confess that a minute or two after hearing the story the first time, I thought "hmm, wonder what type of rifle and caiber they used?"

 

first thing Dad asked.

The second was "I wonder how many shots?"

 

[Northwoods]

first thing Dad asked.

The second was "I wonder how many shots?"

 

Speculation, but I'd bet they aimed for taking out the medula oblongata.  Anything else would give the gorilla 5-30 seconds to tear up the kid before passing out.  So, I'm going with .308 power level caliber, and one shot.

[Jamisjockey]

Dart the kid and gorilla. If the gorilla does not pass out fast enough he will loose interest in the kid that's not moving.

 

[brimic]

The local Cincinnati station had coverage of protesters at the zoo, one of the nitwits commenting on how the lives of the gorilla and the child were of equal value.  Another had a sign "All animal lives matter".   I wonder if BLM will comment on the sign, the juxtaposition of black lives and gorillas has to be racist.

I read about this on failbook this weekend (I have to stay away from that site, it leads me to telling off a lot of people ) and it seems that a very large % of responses were that there are more humans on this earth than gorillas so the gorilla's life is worth more than a human child's.

It's *expletive deleted*it like this that has me praying for a zombie apocalypse or even S.M.O.D.