Cincy Zoo kills critically endangered gorilla to save boy

[Zequill]

So the question remains as to how this small child did. An enclosure for a dangerous animal should be able to withstand a combination of bad parenting, selfies, and determined four year olds.

What if one of the parents did help the kid pass the first barrier? Even if the mother said otherwise, people lie. What if she let him pass and told him to not fall down...

[Rooflesstoofless]

Toddlers/young children can get into anything. My 18 month old has climbed over a 4 foot tall gate with no readily identifiable means of doing so. She's also squeezed through gaps smaller than the width of her skull.

Ha... they've got some skills in climbing.

Which should probably stand as all the more reason to question the zoo's safety measures for the patrons and the gorillas than for people to try and crucify the mother.

What if one of the parents did help the kid pass the first barrier? Even if the mother said otherwise, people lie. What if she let him pass and told him to not fall down...

If a parent helped them get into the enclosure they should be in jail for abuse...but we don't know that.

[Tinykong]

Which should probably stand as all the more reason to question the zoo's safety measures for the patrons and the gorillas than for people to try and crucify the mother.

I'm not sure you could design an enclosure that allowed people to see the animals that would prevent a toddler/young child from getting inside.

My 18 month old daughter climbed over a gate like this (it's 50" tall) that is in a hallway with smooth walls.



No idea how she got over it, because she can't reach the top and if she pulled it down, it would have been obviously laying on the ground. She's also squeezed through something like this:



The space between the supports is only ~4 inches. I watched her squeeze through it, was T1000 Terminator type shit.

[Doomislav]

The correct thing to do was to tranq the gorilla, but have deadly force ready to kill if there appears to be additional danger to the child as the tranq takes effect.

I think the reason they were quick to 'pull the trigger' is because of the army of lawyers that would have sued if they tranq'd the gorilla and the child got hurt. Gorillas don't get lawyers so, there you go.

[Rhaide]

I don't mean to offend you but you seem very uneducated in the area regarding the ecosystem. Our ecosystem. Off the top of my head I can tell you they help disperse seeds throughout the forest, and the insects they eat control pest populations. The only reason they're endangered is from deforestation and poaching. It had literally nothing to do with them not serving a purpose. There's a reason why people choose to breed them and reintroduce them carefully into specific areas. Because the ecosystem depends on them. So to make that claim with no supporting facts is ludicris.

With that said, a zoo that cannot respond to emergencies such as this without harming the animal in question shouldn't be having them captive in the first place. It just makes sense. It isn't the animals choice to be captivated, and since he was going to be used to help repopulate the species, a different protocol should have been taken.

It isn't a matter of valuing humans over "animals." It's a matter of taking proper action and acting responsibly and respectively to the animal you choose, as a business, to exploit. Again, if you're going to have endangered animals captive for the public to see, your response team better be on point.

Word is their gorilla habitat is shut down permanently. If that is the case, that should answer any question if the action they took was the right one.

You clearly misread what I said. Animals DEFINITELY serve a role in an ecosystem, however, animals that are extremely endangered are far too few in number to be serving that role while in their endangered state. In other words, that particular animal may as well already be extinct because of how sparse the population is.

I can clearly see that you have a pretty intense belief system regarding human's impact on the environment, but please try and put that aside for a moment and think about my point. Regardless of WHY an animal is endangered, once it is endangered, it isn't serving its role any longer.

My viewpoint is not lacking any education nor is it poorly thought out. However, you have made numerous arguments based on logical fallacies including Post hoc ergo propter hoc when claiming that the shutdown means they did the 'wrong thing'. It could have easily been shut down because of the negative attention the zoo was getting, or it could be because of the poor animal enclosure that allowed that stupid kid to fall in the first place, not their response.

Your arguments are clearly based on your zealous love for animals, which is noble, but out of place in fact-based intelligent discussion.

[Erudean]

No it didn't have to be done. What they did is so wrong on so many levels, he did nothing wrong after all.

- - - Updated - - -



You wouldn't want those genes to survive and spread anyway.

These are people that work at a zoo, why do you think your judgement is better than he people that work day in and day out with these animals?

[Mistame]

Bullshit, your statement was absolute.

No, it wasn't. I made a comment in the context of the given scenario. The logical deduction of that context with my statement was that I would not sacrifice a human life, especially that of a child, to save any number of animal lives. That does not mean that I'd kill all the bees in the world to save a fucking serial killer or any other such garbage. Stop beating dead hors... strawmen.

The mother of the boy will not face criminal charges. The zoo also plans to reopen the Gorilla exhibit on Tuesday, after having installed new mesh fencing around the compound to make it more secure.

Finally, some sanity.

[Techno-Druid]

[therealbowser]

So your wrong and this is your concession?

Whatever makes you feel better, kid. I'm not sure how I can be wrong when there's nothing to debate. You're just throwing insults around like a child. Refer to the quoted post.

[Endus]

Locking this, since it was necroed from nearly two months ago.