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Cinci Zoo Gorilla Death

The Interpreter
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bkroz
bkroz

A pretty thoughtless comment given the article linked to above that you're no doubt responding to.   Imagine if your dog or cat was put to sleep and the entire world decided to make it into a meme a

homestar92
homestar92

I'm just glad above all else that the kid is OK.   I'll be completely honest, it's very difficult for me to care in the slightest bit about the Gorilla when a young child was in such a dangerous sit

rcwizard13
rcwizard13

I really hope there's some child endangerment charges brought on against the parents/gaurdian of that poor child. There is absolutely no way they could have "fallen" in without being allowed up to or

upstop KIC Superstar

upstop

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Wow. So incredibly tragic on all sides. I'm curious how the child got through the fencing, Something is strange about that. I haven't been to the gorilla exhibit in years, so I can't remember the compound. In most of the exhibits, a small child would need to be lifted to see inside. The one thing that bothers me about some visitors is the willingness to sit a child on an exhibit fence. I hope that is not the real case in this instance.

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rcwizard13 KIC Platinum Member

rcwizard13

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I really hope there's some child endangerment charges brought on against the parents/gaurdian of that poor child. There is absolutely no way they could have "fallen" in without being allowed up to or possibly lifted up to the top of the wall around the enclosure. I would say I'd like to see a gorilla murder charge on the guardian as well, but I don't think such a charge exists.

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shark6495 KIC Legend

shark6495

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The Zoo stated that in the 38 years this exhibit was open this is the first time someone got in....

WLWT released some footage. It honestly looks like the Silverback is protecting/confused by the boy. Heck he even brought him up out of the most and into the enclosure. Super scary and frightening stuff.

On one hand super sad the Silverback died and on the other a human has to be saved versus an animal (wish big could be saved).

At the zoo I lift my kid up but usually he's on my shoulders or if he wants to stand we go to the back viewing area that is not near the enclosure. So sad

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The Interpreter KIC Immortal

The Interpreter

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Much more:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/05/29/cincinnati-zoo-reopens-after-gorilla-attack/85124064/

So:

Was this or was this not a "gorilla attack"? The headine, article and quotes are inconsistent.

It appears the child was not being held but instead did crawl through a fence. If so, how is this even possible? It wouldn't seem the zoo is completely non-negligent here IF this is true...

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bkroz KIC Superstar

bkroz

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I'm trying hard to not put this in the same category as what I've seen prominently the last few months.

 

First, a parent allowing their child to run around, sit on strangers' laps (I kid you not), kick strangers' shins, and literally climb walls during the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. (Everyone was so appalled, so speechless, as the mother sat on a bench simply mouthing "come here! Come here sweetie!" I physically made eye contact with her, pointed at the child and said "GO GET HIM. GO. GET. HIM." She finally stood up and brought him back to her lap and held him there. Free-range parenting! At Disneyland! During a show!) 

 

Second, a set of mothers letting children shriek at the top of their lungs, yank on the cords to lower blinds, step across said blinds once they'd bunched on the ground, slap the windows, climb under occupied tables, etc. at a local restaurant just the other day. Again, once in a while they'd look over and go, "Come here, honey." But the children didn't even register it, and the moms went back to their conversation. It's as if they can't imagine that people are trying to eat, or that someone has to clean those windows their children are pressing their faces again and fix the blinds that their children are yanking on.

 

I work at a hands-on museum that is designed for young people and their parents to interact, discuss, touch, play, and try things together. The number of parents (young and older) who are now choosing to sit back and watch through their phone camera instead of with their eyes is astounding. They'd rather collect 200 badly-taken photos that will simply live on their phones forever than actually see or do with their children. Even more astounding are the many, many, many parents who don't watch at all. They're too busy with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook...

 

Maybe I'm cynical but the anecdotal word I'm hearing is that this particular exhibit is blocked by a standard zoo fence followed by a wire fence, a line of shrubbery, and a 12 foot drop into a moat. I understand that as a parent your eyes can't be glued onto your child every second of every minute of every hour of every day, but there are times to be alert and standing at a zoo exhibit is one of them. Given what I've seen, I find it entirely plausible that a parent could be so disengaged that this could happen. And that, I think, ought to be criminal.

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bkroz KIC Superstar

bkroz

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Not my point.

How is it possible a loose child (which IS easily foreseeable--you just said so), accesses a gorilla enclosure?

That shouldn't be physically possible.

 

Oh, I agree! A loose child is a foregone conclusion (increasingly, if you buy my points) and obviously modern zoological standards account for that. But what about this exhibit? We'll just have to wait for the investigation and the slurry of photos we'll see.

 

Apparently this exhibit is 40 years old. Most of the articles mention from the zoo that in 40 years, no one has gotten in. What that says to me is that that'll be their defense: sure, if the exhibit were built in 2016, it would look much different, but it's always been functional.

 

Am I wrong to think that the AZA maintains standards for fence height, distance between bars, etc? If so, wouldn't you expect that exhibits built 40 years ago would be "grandfathered in" within reasonable variation of the current standard?

 

Here's where we enter a tough one: if the fault is in the width of the bars in the fence, or that a decorative rock or even informational sign was "climbable" enough to give this 4-year old access, what kinds of sweeping changes will, could, or should be mandated at zoos across the nation that are likely in the same position as Cincinnati's: made up of many exhibits built of many different standards and designs across many different decades?

 

It may very well be that we find out someone was holding junior up and letting him sit on a fence when he squirmed away and made a bee-line for the gorillas. 

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The Interpreter KIC Immortal

The Interpreter

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Under the ADA, there is NO grandfathering. Why would safety standards be different? The fact, if it is that, that the zoo met the standards of 38 years ago is of no comfort to gorilla lovers.

Enclosures exist not just to protect people from animals, but also to protect animals from people. Here, it appears that this enclosure failed to do that. The child wasn't dropped from a helicopter.

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shark6495 KIC Legend

shark6495

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hzLltXrqLcE

That's a walk through of the exhibit. To be honest I have never looked at the fencing and we have had zoo passes for 3 years in a row now...

You can see the fencing pretty well in the video. It appears that a child or an adult could if they wanted to get into the exhibit pretty easily. At that same token I have seen the new tiger exhibits and if I wanted to I could get in them as well.

As a parent and someone who worked in a preschool, this parent is just beyond stupid. Children do stupid things but as adults it is our job to keep our kids safe. To teach them that yes there are rules and they need to be followed.

I remember a few years back a parent let her kid pound on the glass in the Columbus gorilla exhibit. When my wife told the kid to not do that as he was upsetting the animal the parents yelled at us.

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thegajone KIC Enthusiast

thegajone

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I was pretty depressed for most of the evening after reading about this, and even more depressed after making the terrible mistake of reading the comments section on some of the articles covering it. Holy moly, the amount of vitriol out there is staggering. You had people lashing out at the parents (who no doubt just went through the most traumatizing experience of their lives regardless of their negligence), people furious with the zoo for putting down Harambe instead of tranquilizing him (despite every article I read including explanation of why that would be a very bad idea), and a ton of people livid over the fact that zoos even exist at all because it's "torture" to all the animals in all the zoos that have ever existed apparently. I try to react to this story with compassion for all parties -- the child, the parents, the zoo, the witnesses, and most of all Harambe who lost his life despite being the most innocent one in all of this -- but I struggle to have compassion for those who are quick to judge! This is not aimed at anyone in this thread -- I think the comments here have all been reasonable -- but I just get a little fired up over the people who go way over the top with their anger!

The litigation resulting from this incident will be interesting to say the least. For selfish reasons I hope the zoo doesn't go broke over it (I'm sure they'll be fine), but it'll be interesting to follow nonetheless.

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homestar92 KIC Superstar

homestar92

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I'm just glad above all else that the kid is OK.

 

I'll be completely honest, it's very difficult for me to care in the slightest bit about the Gorilla when a young child was in such a dangerous situation that could have so easily cost him his life.

 

I think the controversy here is that he was able to get into that situation at all. And that, I totally get. I'd like answers on that subject too. Once the kid was actually in the enclosure, however, I truly don't think there was any other reasonable solution to the problem. I will fault the zoo for being designed in a way that allowed the kid to be in danger. I will NOT fault them for doing what they did once he was in danger.

 

I've seen people on social media claiming that they should have allowed the kid to get whatever would have been coming to him because he should have known better. Come on guys, he's four. I wouldn't have grasped the danger of that situation at four. And how much is known about the kid? What if he had a cognitive or learning disability. Should he still have "known better" then? Maybe YOU personally knew better at four years old. If so, I'm thrilled that you were such a whiz kid, congratulations! Not every child is the same and you cannot project your own experiences onto this. Saying that the Gorilla should have been spared even after the kid got into the enclosure and to heck with whatever happens to him simply brings my blood to a boil. If a human being, particularly one who may not have known what they were getting into, is in a life-threatening situation, I don't care about animals even if they are endangered.

 

If it were my kid, and they were in danger, I would without hesitation take the animal's life before I let the kid come into harm's way, even if that animal is literally the very last of its species. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned...

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KI FANATIC 37 KIC Superstar

KI FANATIC 37

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If it were my kid, and they were in danger, I would without hesitation take the animal's life before I let the kid come into harm's way, even if that animal is literally the very last of its species. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned...

 

I completely agree. I think it is very fortunate that the kid is safe and no humans were injured. It could have very easily been different! 

 

If I were in charge I would have done the same thing. 

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shark6495 KIC Legend

shark6495

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Can't agree more. I feel terrible the animal died just part of me (I hate that cows die but they are delicious sooo there's that too). But ultimately we are the highest on the food chain and we do what we must to protect our kind.

But if that was my kid, without a second of hesitation I would have cleared that first hurdle and tried to get him. Or if he was in the enclosure did my best to try and get the attention away. I would die for my kid or my nephews and nieces.

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dtk1378 KIC Enthusiast

dtk1378

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Very bad that a parent can't keep a child from crawling through a fence to fall down into the moat, just ridiculous. As for the safety of the enclosure from guests, the zoo's next big project is to completely re-do the gorilla exhibit, this is supposed to be the next project after the hippo exhibit. So it sounds like they already had plans of taking care of any type of accident like this in the future, just that unfortunately the accident happened before they could begin construction.

 

There are many exhibits at the zoo where I could very easily jump the railing and get in right in front of the animals, the rhino exhibit comes to mind. The barriers at zoos are developed in a way more to keep animals from getting out into the general public areas than they are of keeping the general public from entering the enclosures, notice that the gorillas in all 38 years have never jumped into the viewing area, that would be because there is sufficient barriers to keep them out. Do we really need to start putting glass houses around every single animal now though to make them feel like they are even more caged in just because neglectful parents can't keep their children from going through obvious barriers?

 

If my daughter were to even attempt something like that she wouldn't of even made it half way through the railing before being hauled off and home and grounded.

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diamonbackandbeastlover KIC Enthusiast

diamonbackandbeastlover

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Some witnesses were saying the kid said he wanted to play with the mother before she turned her back and he climbed in. I'll go off and look for a source.

EDIT: See the 3rd bullet point http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3615099/Outrage-directed-parents-Harambe-gorilla-s-senseless-death-four-year-old-son-fell-enclosure-led-zoo-officials-fatally-shoot-animal.html

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