Eastern_lowland_gorilla

Officials made a difficult decision to fatally shoot a gorilla after a four-year-old boy plummeted into the animal's enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Now thousands of people worldwide are crying foul and wanting the boy's parents to be held responsible for the death of this endangered creature.

But are the parents really to blame?

According to witnesses, on Saturday May 28th, 2016, a young boy climbed through the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio and fell approximately 10 feet into a moat, where he was greeted by a 400-pound male lowland gorilla named Harambe.

The video footage taken by onlookers is enough to make any parent's heart skip a beat. Harambe grabs the young boy and violently drags him around in the moat's water. At one point, he stops and looks at the child curiously, even reaching out and touching the boy's face. Some witnesses even described him as "protective."

But there was no doubt the gorilla's actions put the child in real danger of serious injury or death, which is why zoo staff made the heartbreaking decision to lethally shoot the highly endangered primate. There was concern over using a tranquilizer gun, as the sedative would take time to work and Harambe could be further frightened and aggravated in the meantime, putting the boy's life at greater risk.

Once rescued from the enclosure, the boy was taken to hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

But the outrage was nearly immediate. The public turned to social media, many placing the blame of the animal's death squarely on the child's parents.

An online petition was started on change.org in favor of having the child's family held accountable. Entitled "Justice for Harambe," it received over 180,000 signatures in less than 48 hours. The petition reads, in part:
"This beautiful gorilla lost his life because the boy's parents did not keep a closer watch on the child. We the undersigned believe that the child would not have been able to enter the enclosure under proper parental supervision.

Witnesses claim that they heard the child state that he wished to go into the enclosure and was actively trying to breach the barriers. This should have prompted the parents to immediately remove the child from the vicinity. It is believed that the situation was caused by parental negligence and the zoo is not responsible for the child's injuries and possible trauma."
Others blame the zoo, claiming if a four-year-old can breech its barriers, they're not offering enough protection to young visitors. Moreover, some animal rights organizations believe if zoos were not holding animals in captivity in the first place, situations like these wouldn't happen.

But zoologists from all over the world are chiming in as well, and most are encouraging the public to think before they react judgmentally - against the parents or the zoo.

Many primate experts claim the gorilla could have easily killed the boy if measures had not been taken quickly, given its size and the well-known unpredictability of these large mammals.

Some go on to argue that children, like their primate cousins, can also behave unpredictably, even sometimes breeching a barrier that is specifically designed to keep them out. And perhaps, some argue, we shouldn't be so quick to blame the boy's parents for this. After all, many of us have lost track of our own children for a few brief moments, haven't we? The only difference is that, for most of us, the consequences have been far less public and less devastating.

What do I think? I think we need to take a breath, and not put all our eggs in one big blame basket.

Sometimes, no one is fully to blame for a tragic situation. Despite the best of intentions, bad things can still happen. A watchful parent turns away at the wrong moment. A young child makes a dangerous decision. A safety system that has never failed before fails. The animal affected is one that poses significant risk to human life.

Maybe the best we can do is use what happened as a reminder to keep a close eye on our kids and respect the wildness found in all animals, captive or otherwise. Losing such a beautiful creature is heartbreaking, but pointing fingers is simply making a bad situation worse.

Image credit: By Joe McKenna from San Diego, California (Imposing) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons