Did the Cincinnati Zoo really have to shoot that gorilla?

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: HOTAIR.COM

URL: http://hotair.com/archives/2016/05/30/did-the-cincinnati-zoo-really-have-to-shoot-that-gorilla

by: AllahPundit

__________________________________________

If you’re angry at the mother for taking her eye off her kid long enough for him to wriggle into the gorilla pen, that’s fair enough. An innocent creature died because of that, although accidents do happen. No parent has their eye on their child at every moment, even on a family outing. If you’re angry at the zoo for not doing a better job of securing the pen knowing that small kids — who make up a fair share of their visitors, I’m sure — might foolishly try to find a way that in, that’s fair enough too. But if you’re angry that the zoo chose to use lethal force once the kid was in the pen and the gorilla had him in its hands, what’s your alternative? What sort of risk should the zoo have taken with the baby’s life in the name of using less than lethal force? If they had approached it and tried to lure it away with food or used tranquilizer rounds on it instead of live ammo and the gorilla had reacted by suddenly bashing the baby’s head in, how many in the “Why did you shoot the gorilla?” crowd would be in the “Why didn’t you shoot the gorilla?” group now?

The reason people are agonizing over this, I think, is because video of the incident shows the gorilla behaving gently with the baby. That makes the choice to kill it twice as gut-wrenching: It’s one thing to shoot a wild animal that’s charging a defenseless child, it’s another to shoot an animal that seems to be trying to protect it. But the video doesn’t capture the whole encounter. According to the woman who recorded it, the gorilla was more dangerous than the footage suggests:

    At first, it looked like Harambe was trying to help the boy, O’Connor said. He stood him up and pulled up his pants.

    As the crowd’s clamors grew, Harambe tossed the boy into a corner of the moat, O’Connor said, which is when she started filming. Harambe went over to the corner and shielded the boy with his body as the boy’s mother yelled “Mommy’s right here.”

    The crowd’s cries appeared to agitate Harambe anew, O’Connor said, and the video shows him grabbing the boy by the foot. He dragged him through the water and out of the moat atop the habitat, O’Connor said.

    By that point, “It was not a good scene,” she said. When the boy tried to back away the gorilla “aggressively” pulled him back into his body “and really wasn’t going to let him get away,” she said.

The clip runs around two minutes but the entire incident reportedly lasted more than 10. “The child was being dragged around,” the zoo’s director said earlier this afternoon. “His head was banging on concrete, this was not a gentle thing.” The zoo claims that a tranquilizer would have taken several minutes to kick in and that it might have agitated the gorilla, at which point its behavior would have become unpredictable. They had to stop it cold before it hurt the baby, even if only by accident, and there was only one way. What was the alternative?

Spare a thought for the zookeepers in all this, even if you’re furious at them for leaving a vulnerability in the enclosure through which a child could sneak in and cause this sort of terrible moral dilemma. Harambe, the gorilla, wasn’t a recent transplant from abroad. He was born in captivity; “baby pictures” of him are available online. The people who cared for him and then had to put him down at a moment’s notice to save a stranger’s child must be sick with grief. If I had to kill an animal I’d raised and loved in order to protect a random person, especially if that person’s actions had created the situation, it’d be a year before I stopped vomiting. They must be suffering terribly.

Exit question: Should the baby’s mother have climbed in too to try to save him? (You can hear her yelling at points on the video to the child that “mommy’s here.”) It’s hard to imagine how her going in after him wouldn’t have led to the same outcome, or a worse one. You’d expect a parent to try to sacrifice him- or herself in the interest of protecting their kid but a second strange person entering the pen might have further startled the gorilla, leading it to do God knows what with the baby. If you reasonably believe that going in after the child would increase the risk to him, not just to you, then the smart move is to stay put and wait for the pros, no?

[Mod1]

This more appropriately belongs in Opinions, and is being moved.

[don-o]

Thanks for posting this. I am not interested in the pros and cons of shooting this ape.

I am more interested in how and why such an event becomes national news, to the extent that I read some pundit wondering if Trump would be asked about it (and I believe he was.)

Now, I have read old newspapers which would report on such from a distant place; but never saw a candidate then immediately questioned about it. It's just like "boxers or briefs?" asked to Clinton (Bill)

Triviality.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Thanks for posting this. I am not interested in the pros and cons of shooting this ape.

I am more interested in how and why such an event becomes national news, to the extent that I read some pundit wondering if Trump would be asked about it (and I believe he was.)

Now, I have read old newspapers which would report on such from a distant place; but never saw a candidate then immediately questioned about it. It's just like "boxers or briefs?" asked to Clinton (Bill)

Triviality. 

I agree with you on this.  Shooting the damn ape saved a child.  There was a time when this would have been called common sense. 

[Wingnut]

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  1h1 hour ago
I don't think they had a choice. I mean, probably they didn't have a choice. You have a child -- a young child who is at stake -- and, you know -- it's too bad there wasn't another way. But I heard, I think, you know -- the young child say: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" so there were moments where it looked pretty dangerous.

[sinkspur]

The problem with this is that in several other incidents detailed last night on CNN, zoo personnel were able to coax a gorilla away from two other children, or distract it.  There was apparently no effort to try to spare this gorilla from being shot.

A bad situation all the way around.  One has to ask why this has never happened before at the Cincinnati zoo.

[don-o]

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  1h1 hour ago
I don't think they had a choice. I mean, probably they didn't have a choice. You have a child -- a young child who is at stake -- and, you know -- it's too bad there wasn't another way. But I heard, I think, you know -- the young child say: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" so there were moments where it looked pretty dangerous.

Did you forget a parody tag on this? Because I cannot find it.

[WAC]

The problem with this is that in several other incidents detailed last night on CNN, zoo personnel were able to coax a gorilla away from two other children, or distract it.  There was apparently no effort to try to spare this gorilla from being shot.

A bad situation all the way around.  One has to ask why this has never happened before at the Cincinnati zoo.

Regardless....they were there and made a determination to do what they believed necessary to protect the child. Everything else from that point really doesn't matter.....those speaking the loudest are doing so after the fact.

IMO they had no opportunity to talk down the animal as the screams of the onlookers had already put the animal in a defensive mode be it for the child or himself.  Too risky all around....He'd already been startled enough by the "audiences" shrills  and dragged the kid through the water.  There's no telling what else he could have done equally as threatening to the child...even if to the gorilla it was seemingly protecting the child.

Might be a good idea to set an age limit to zoos, five and older......as it sees those who slip through are five and under. Kids under five generally need constant supervision because they certainly don't listen to todays parents.

[r9etb]

they had no opportunity to talk down the animal as the screams of the onlookers had already put the animal in a defensive mode be it for the child or himself.

That being the case, their first move should have been to move the onlookers out of the area.  No doubt that will be part of their new procedures hereafter.

Might be a good idea to set an age limit to zoos, five and older......as it sees those who slip through are five and under. Kids under five generally need constant supervision because they certainly don't listen to todays parents.

Sorry, but that's just ridiculous.

[Neverdul]

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  1h1 hour ago
I don't think they had a choice. I mean, probably they didn't have a choice. You have a child -- a young child who is at stake -- and, you know -- it's too bad there wasn't another way. But I heard, I think, you know -- the young child say: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" so there were moments where it looked pretty dangerous.

 

Did you forget a parody tag on this? Because I cannot find it.

I think that was Wingnut having some fun. This is what Trump actually said (parts of which are nearly as goofy and it’s so hard to distinguish what Trump says from parody):

"I think it's a very tough call. It was amazing because there were moments with the gorilla--the way he held that child-- it was almost like a mother holding a baby--looked so beautiful and calm,"

"And there were moments where it looked pretty dangerous. I don't think they had a choice. I mean, probably they didn't have a choice. You have a child -- a young child who is at stake -- and, you know -- it's too bad there wasn't another way.”

“I thought it was so beautiful to watch that you know powerful, almost 500-pound gorilla, the way he dealt with that little boy. But it just takes one second -- one second -- it's not like it takes place over -- well, he's going to do it in 30 seconds from now. It just takes one little flick of his finger. And I will tell you they probably had no choice."

I saw the videos and read the reports of some of the people who were there saw - what wasn’t on the videos (like the gorilla dragging the boy up the side of the moat while the kid’s head was banging on the concrete and throwing him around like a ragdoll) and also that of some animal and primate experts including Jack Hanna and (I think also Jane Goodall) who said the animal was acting erratically and appeared confused and highly agitated.

ETA:

Yes, Trump and others are IMO correct - the zoo officials had no choice. But it wasn’t “beautiful” and the gorilla was never like a mother holding the child like a baby”, not “beautiful and calm”.

[Chieftain]

More mindless speculation over what shoulda/coulda/woulda/mighta/oughta have happened.

My bottom line is that the parents of this kid were negligent and allowed their child to put himself in to a truly life threatening situation.  The Zoo had and activated a Wild Animal Response Team, trained and ready at all times to deal decisively with a dangerous event like this one.  I truly feel for the poor bastard who was left with no choice other than to shoot a truly magnificent animal.

I hope all the fact surrounding what led up to this come out and soon.  I'm pretty sure the Zoo has surveillance video from multiple angles that documents exactly how this was allowed (by the parents) to happen.

[mountaineer]

Tuesday, May 31, 2016
When Does Cultural Insanity Hit the Breaking Point?
Lenny Esposito
Come Reason apologetics blog {EXCERPTED}

The Internet is ablaze with all kinds of opinions on about the shooting of Harambe, a seventeen-year-old gorilla zookeepers shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after the beast grabbed a three year old child who had fallen into his enclosure. Twitter showed the hashtag #JusticeForHarambe was trending over the weekend and a change.org petition entitle "Justice for Harambe" has garnered over 350,000 signatures urging that the parents of the toddler "be held accountable for the lack of supervision and negligence that caused Harambe to lose his life."

Obviously, this only proves there are 350,000 people in the world who have never had to watch a toddler for an extended period of time. ...

The gorilla protesters aren't a big thing by themselves. However, the event is indicative of a very scary trend that has been developing rather quickly in society. People have basically decoupled themselves from reality. We have seen it in the transgender issue where people not only wish to believe their desire is enough to change the reality of their biology; they demand that everyone else reinforce their desire. We've seen it in spoiled college kids who think if they only hear opinions and ideas about how they want the world to be, they won't be "triggered" and therefore bad things won't happen to them. We've seen it in every televised police pursuit where each felon seems to really believe that he or she can unilaterally escape an entire police squad wit radios, spike strips, and helicopters to track their every move. How do those always end?

While it's easy to point at each scenario and shake our heads, I'm wondering when will enough be enough?   ...

Rest of article

[Neverdul]

One has to ask why this has never happened before at the Cincinnati zoo.

Might be a good idea to set an age limit to zoos, five and older......as it sees those who slip through are five and under. Kids under five generally need constant supervision because they certainly don't listen to todays parents.

Here is the thing IMO - you just can’t fool proof (or idiot proof) zoos nor life in general. 

Accidents happen and little kids sometimes do stupid things even under the supervision of the most attentive parent, even if they are normally well behaved kids.  Of course more so with inattentive parents and uncontrolled spoiled brats. 

There have also been cases of adults climbing into animal enclosures at other zoos, even where there were much more daunting barriers in place, a few cases where teens or adults have broken into zoos after hours and several did not live to tell the tale.

Here is a recent example:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3602819/Naked-man-jumps-zoo-s-LION-enclosure-suicide-bid-survives-grave-condition-two-beasts-mauling-KILLED.html

And another:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3604852/North-Dakota-man-21-bitten-bear-breaking-zoo-taunting-animal.html

I remember going to the Baltimore Zoo when I was a kid and most the animals were in rather small metal cages with another tall metal fence and a concrete barrier in front of the cages. It was really sad for me to see the big cats, tigers, leopards pace back in forth in their small cages.

People now days (and also for the betterment of the animals) want to see animals kept in zoos in a somewhat more natural habitat. But they still want to see them and get as close as possible without getting mauled or made into lunch.

And placing an age limit at zoos I don’t think is the answer either.

How many thousands of people go to zoos every day including parents with small children without any incident? A lot.

Although I know some people are appalled by them and I used to be, I’m not against child “leashes”.

My niece and her husband had a baby daughter and then 11 months later (unplanned and to their complete surprise), they had triplet daughters. It was almost like having quads. Talk about a handful!

When the girls were little, I helped out a lot and then lived with them for a time and went on many family outings with them including to zoos and parks, amusement parks, shopping malls, museums and other public places. Before the girls were walking they were in strollers – two double strollers but even that was a challenge and some places are not so stroller friendly. And mom couldn’t go out or take them anywhere without another adult to push the other stroller.

At the time she thought things would get better once they were walking.  Ha! She (and I) soon found out that four toddler girls was a lot like herding cats.

Her husband found on line and ordered these really cute animal back packs that doubled as “leashes”.





Greatest thing evar! And the girls loved them - well maybe not the leash part but they each had their own “backpack” in their favorite animal and color and they loved putting them on and putting some toys in the zippered pockets, made them feel like big kids, so most of the time they didn’t even notice they were “tethered” to an adult at least until one tried to make a run for it.

[don-o]

 

I think that was Wingnut having some fun. This is what Trump actually said (parts of which are nearly as goofy and it’s so hard to distinguish what Trump says from parody):

 

I get that now. But, clever though he is, Trump puts  @Wingnut in the shade. When it comes to sheer genius for stream of consciousness, disconnected blather.

I expect it's not classic Tourette's, but there must be some related mental malady he should be checked for.

I mean, didn't he diagnose Ben Carson as being pathological? Seems he would want to get a certification that all is well in the brain box.

[Suppressed]

[Wingnut]

I think that was Wingnut having some fun. This is what Trump actually said (parts of which are nearly as goofy and it’s so hard to distinguish what Trump says from parody):



ETA:

Yes, Trump and others are IMO correct - the zoo officials had no choice. But it wasn’t “beautiful” and the gorilla was never like a mother holding the child like a baby”, not “beautiful and calm”.

Those were Trumps actual words in my Trump "Tweet" quote.... well except for one line.  That one was 1st spoken by "Bright Eyes" Taylor when he was recaptured by gorillas.   :nometalk:

[Sanguine]

The clip I saw showed Harambe aggressively dragging the child around by the foot.  Nothing kind or gentle to it.

Yes, it was the right thing to do.  Sad, but right.

[flowers]

Very sad, but yes right thing to do. If Harambe had killed the  child you know they would all be yelling....'white mans zoo's ape kills black child'  Diversion, all this is is another great diversion put on MSM while not having to put up real news.