It does seem a bit harsh to be criticising the zookeepers at Cincinnati Zoo who shot and killed a gorilla after a four-year-old boy slipped into it's enclosure.
Footage shot by a witness shows Harambe, the 17-year-old male gorilla, standing near the boy, after dragging the child through the water and tossed the boy into a corner of the moat before standing over him and then the keepers shooting the animal rather than tranquilizing him.
'Tranquilizers do not take effect for several minutes, and the child was in imminent danger. On top of that, the impact from the dart could agitate the animal and cause the situation to get much worse' Thane Maynard, director of the Cincinnati Zoo explained in a statement.
The zookeeper's decision to shoot and kill Harambe has been called into question over whether death was the only option or if the decision to kill the gorilla was made too quickly.
It is tragic that Harambe was killed but i can't see that the zookeepers had any other option, by the time the tranquilizers took effect you would dread to think what the agitated, unpredictable animal may have done to the boy who was in the gorillas domain and then we would be having a very different conversation.
3 comments:
Very true, i did read he went through 3 fences before he fell into the enclosure so that needs to be looked at if a 4 year old can navigate them.
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