Update on the Gorilla murder story: ZOO WITNESS SAYS GORILLA WAS 'PROTECTING' CHILD

[underahedgerow]

23. I'm absolutely certain those witnesses were all wild animal and animal behavioral experts.

Yeah, that was sarcasm.

I don't think the zoo officials made any mistakes at all. I think they acted in the best interests of the child and frankly in their own legal interests.

'What would have happened if'
The gorilla has smashed the kid's head against the rock, accidentally while waiting for the tranq to kick in?
If, while waiting for the tranq to kick in, the gorilla had grasped the child, fallen into the water and drowned the kid?
Decided to protect the kid from the zookeepers? And crushed him?

There are SO many variables in this situation, that the ONLY choice to make was to err on the side of protecting the child... And it's a great tragedy for everyone.

Kids are stupid and they make mistakes. Humans do too, and the parents made the mistake here, that lead to the child's endangerment and the gorilla's death. The zoo made no mistakes, they did the best they could considering the situation.

Stop blaming the zoo. While the animal wasn't at fault here, the decision had to be made on the spot about who was more important. In this case it was the kid.

It's a tragedy, but thankfully the kid should be ok.

Zookeepers are good, kind people who love the work they do, and form strong bonds with the animals in their charge. The same goes for people working in Animal Control. While there are commercial aspects to zoos that I don't like so much, by and large, the work they do these days is about species preservation, and in large part, the ONLY funds those species preservation projects receive are from public zoos. You can't have one without the other.