[Christopher Halsey]

COMMUNITY DEBATE

Cincinnati Zoo

As many of you will be aware an incident took place at Cincinnati Zoo on the 28th of May in which a male silverback gorilla named Harambe was shot dead by zookeepers after Isaiah D.ickerson, a 4 year old child, had gained entry to the enclosure.

The general consensus both from eyewitnesses at the scene and experts consulted after the event seems to be that Harambe was not attempting to hurt Isaiah D.ickerson and was instead protecting the child, the endangered gorilla did appear to become agitated by the reaction of onlookers resulting in him dragging the child which, regardless of intention, could have injured the child and zookeepers at the time felt they had no option but to shoot Harambe dead to ensure the protection of the child, this decision was later deemed correct by the management of the zoo.

In this community debate we will be discussing and debating who is primarily responsible for the incident AND whether or not any action should be taken against them. Please note the word primarily as it is likely a case of more than one party bearing some blame.

Your options are:

Harambe (Gorilla) - The gorilla could and should have left the child alone but choose to grab him, putting the child at risk.
Isaiah (Child) - Isaiah wanted and gained access to the enclosure thus putting himself at risk.
The onlookers - A number of those that witnessed the event were screaming and shouting possibly agitating the animal and making a bad situation worse.
The parents - The parents have a duty of care to their child both in teaching them how to behave and ensuring they are safe.
The zookeepers - The zookeepers made the decision to kill the animal.
The zoo management - The zoo have a duty of care to visitors and animals which they did not fulfil.

[aceman67]

The Parents for not keeping a better eye on their kid, but the zoo is also equally at fault for having an enclosure that a toddler can easily fall into. (I would have chosen the zoo as well if you could choose two options)

As for the response that the Zoo took, it was the right choice.

As smart as the gorilla was, he was still a large 400+ lbs wild animal, unpredictable. If they would have tranquillized him, he could have freaked out and killed the kid, or fell on top of the kid, ect.

It was a bad situation, and the only good outcome that would have saved the kid was shooting the animal. All other options would have resulted in the death of the child or the death of both the animal and the child.

[Mark Okuda]

I choose the Parents. I am not a Parent so I don't know what it is like having to care for a child. On the other hand I do have some knowledge that you should be looking after your child when your in a public place such as a zoo. I believe that children at that age do not know that there are some things you should not do such as climb over a barrier into a animal habitat.

[Infinity]

What I'd like to know is why was it that easy? The Zoo should not make it that easy for young children to get into habitats with wild animals. Hopefully after this incident they will make it a LOT harder to get into cages so to avoid situations like this from reoccurring.

I definitely blame the Zoo partially for this, they should've improved their cages and made it virtually impossible for young children to gain access. I'm not a parent but I was a kid a few years back, I know that it is easy to get lost in Zoos (my mother certainly lost me a few times!) but they should've tried to keep a better eye on the kiddo. Especially since he was pretty young.


Update: After doing some research on this, I found out that the fence between the enclosure and the visitors was far too short, unfortunately it was only a matter of time before an incident like this happened. It does look like the zoo has drastically increased the height of the fence so this will hopefully never happen again at Cincinnati Zoo, The parent was tending to another child when the little boy ran away and unfortunately got into the habitat. The barrier is now 42 inches high.

[Dark]

I will not blame a gorilla for being a gorilla, but I will blame the parent for failing to parent.

Their being distracted with another child is absolutely no excuse - imagine a day care center on an excursion had this happen? They would absolutely be held responsible for failing to provide sufficient adult supervision to tend to the children.

Far too often parents treat zoos and similar venues like child-safe playgrounds. It's ridiculous.

[Christopher Halsey]

So far the parents really aren't fairing too well with a massive 87.5% of the vote saying they are primarily responsible.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on what that should mean, did what nearly happened to the young child serve as punishment enough? Whilst to blame does everyone have a bad day or does there need to be consequences for their actions?

[Dark]

I'm one of those who believe everyone needs to be held accountable for their actions, or negligence in this case.

In an ideal world where the zoo doesn't have to be paranoid about PR, the parents would be sued (civil, not criminal) for the value and cost of losing the endangered animal. Such civil liability tends to be proportional to the fault of the parties, and I'd peg them at 60%-75% at fault.

[Isaac Angelos]

Since there isn't an "All the Above" i didn't vote, but yeah, i blame everyone. Family were idiots, Onlookers were idiots, Harambe is a beast and you can't rely on a beast to not injury a kid because you hope it won't. Zoo seemed a bit slow in acting as well.

All in all, everyone f***ed up and everyone loses in this.

[ODST General]

Well as a retail supervisor parents and their children are often separated, it really is easy to drop your guard for only just an instant and loose track of a young child. With that being said with the mother being a pre school administrator, she should be even more so precocious is a large public space where its easy to get separated. I do think the zoo should hold some responsibility for their lack of proper barriers. But to be honest as a kid at that age I could get into a lot more places then I can now.

Ultimately while its a terrible situation I feel its the culmination of a bunch of situations that were thought to be unlikely created by innocent mistakes from all parties and ended as well as the situation could.

[Silynn]

Did the zookeepers/officials, upon the child being inside the pen... try to remove the onlookers?

If the onlookers were agitating the gorilla with heckles and yelling, why didn't anyone remove the crowd (i.e. close off the area for public spectacle) and see if the gorilla would calm down. Perhaps then a couple of powerful tranq darts or even the regular zookeeper could have dissolved the situation without lethal force.

Child was being a curious child. Perhaps, they were thinking the gorilla was their "Curious George"? One can't really blame them.

Parents definitely have some blame. The Zoo does as well, especially if they had complaints or near "incidents" prior with the fencing. I can see why the designers of the zoo made the fence shorter than 42 inches. As if you think about it, a lot of kids would visit the zoo. Many are probably under 42 inches of height, and when viewing the gorillas, they don't want likely want to see them in the clear. Not through glass or a fence. The animal enclosures (cages) were likely built to keep the animals from getting out. Not so much from keeping people out of the animal enclosures. That's where the designers were thinking common sense would solve that issue.

Parents 75%, Zoo 25%, Onlookers 0%, Gorilla 0%, and Child 0%.

[Christopher Halsey]

A big thanks to the 12 members taking part in the poll.

The results show a massive 91.67% think that the primary responsibility is that of the parents. As with all of our community debates the thread and the poll will stay open so please feel free to take part if you haven't already!