When a 4-year-old boy climbed into the gorilla exhibit in the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden last week, chaos broke out. The 17-year-old gorilla, Harambe, approached the boy, and as screams and calls to 911 were heard from onlookers, he dragged the boy through the water of his exhibit. Because of the gorilla’s actions, the zoo decided they needed to do something. However, rather than tranquilizing him, they chose to shoot him with a rifle as a quick response to the terrifying situation.
The young boy was taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Thane Maynard, Cincinnati Zoo Director, told CNN, “It’s a sad day all the way around,” a statement that is especially true because the Harambe was a Western Lowland Gorilla, a critically endangered species. He was being kept at the zoo in hopes that he could father other gorillas at a later point in his life, expanding their population.
The zoo has tried to explain that the reason they needed to kill Harambe the way they did was because the boy was in danger, which apparently gave their Dangerous Animal Response Team no other choice but to shoot him. As the gorilla weighed 450 pounds, it was highly likely tranquilizers could not have acted fast enough to save the boy and the dart used could agitate Harambe even more. Maynard said in a statement on Facebook, “We are heartbroken about losing Harambe, but a child’s life was in danger and a quick decision had to be made.”
“It is important to note that with the child still in the exhibit, tranquilizing the 450-pound gorilla was not an option. Tranquilizers do not take effect for several minutes and the child was in imminent danger,” the post read.
In comments following the statement, some members of the public are outraged at the reaction the zoo had to this incident. Rather than blaming Harambe, they argue, they should be blaming the boy’s parents. The anger has spread to other modes of social media, including Twitter, where some people showed particularly strong opinions on Harambe’s death.
Harambe:
Didn’t ask to be in a zoo
Didn’t have control over a woman not watching her child
Didn’t want to be killed pic.twitter.com/RTccWqH34E— PRAIRIE FROST MEDIA (@JamesCheetham2) May 30, 2016
Rest in peace, Harambe. Now arrest the mother and put her kids in state custody. She is unfit to parent. pic.twitter.com/s5JnuAqcRA
— andieiam (@andieiamwhoiam) May 30, 2016
Now, a petition has even been created to put blame on the parents instead of Harambe, and people are beginning to protest outside of the zoo.
Protestors outside Cincinnati Zoo, demanding action for #Harambe, Gorilla shot after child fell in enclosure. @WLWT pic.twitter.com/DZNlP7AcZ7
— Tammy Mutasa (@TammyMutasaWLWT) May 29, 2016
Kim O’Connor, a woman who witnessed the incident, told Cincinnati’s news channel WLWT5, “I don’t know if the screaming did it or too many people hanging on the edge, if he thought we were coming in, but then he pulled the boy down away further from the big group.” Gorillas like Harambe have shown that they will protect humans like this 4-year-old the same way they would protect their own small family members, but in such a scary and intense situation it was likely hard to tell if Harambe was trying to hurt or help the little boy.